Glass Beading your engine...is it the best method?

[Anonymous]

I want my engine to look like new...and I've heard that glass beading followed by clear coating is the best method.

First of all, is this true? Secondly, where on earth can I take an engine to get this treatment?

Thanks!

Rudi 8)

[Anonymous]

a good machine shop should have a glass bead blaster.

[Anonymous]

Glass beading

You'll have to disassemble the engine. Watch out after you have it blasted because the dust will get into everything.

[Anonymous]

Have any of you ever had this done to your engines? Did it turn out great? Expensive?

:-)

[Anonymous]

Have any of you ever had this done to your engines? Did it turn out great? Expensive?

:-)

I did upper half of mine (the case that is). Also did the cylinders.
Got the little home blasting unit from Sears. Does pretty good job.
Gary is right. The dust gets everywhere. I cleaned mine extensively before starting to remove any oil film so the dust had less to get a grip on.
Afterwards I rinsed it over and over again to get all the residue out.
I have a large black plastic tub which worked nicely because after rinsing you could tell right away if it rinsed clean by wether or not anything settled to the bottom.
Also get something to run through the oil gallerys, bolt holes, any passages to make sure they aren't hiding any of the residue (or make sure whoever does it cares as much as you do about getting it clean ). You don't want this stuff floating around in your engine afterwards.

You might look in to using a different medium. I remember something about using ground up walnet shells, guess it's much likely to cause a problem later if some gets left in the case, the glass beads would be pretty hard on bearings and seals.

[Anonymous]

Any idea what it would cost, at a machine shop, to glass bead an engine? Ballpark $$ figure. Just curious...is this a $100, $200, $300 plus job?

Thanks!


Rudi

[Anonymous]

Glass beading

Yea, forgot to mention that everything has to be ABSOLUTELY clean or you will just drive oil/dirt into the aluminum. Walnut shells will take off dirt but will not polish without a polishing agent (rouge) added. Walnut shell residue won't hurt your engine but will gum up.

[sharpy]

Clean engine

What about acid dipping. Did my complete engine turned out nice with just a couple of flecks of paint left on it. Complete strip down requided. Oil gallery end plate(behind clutch),shift forks, cylinder sleeves o-rings & gear lever shaft seal. Even gave them a can of WD40 to spray valve seats and things like that so as not to rust until I picked it up. $35 was the cost about 5 years ago. If it has a silver engine the bottom case is not painted as standard and comes up nice using steelwool soap-pads. VHT universal allumium engine paint was used for the rest and you would be hard pressed to get paint as close. Everything was baked in my oven at 180F for a hour then left to cool in the oven. Watch out for the sleeves lifting a few mms. If this happens just push them back into place and place something flat on top until they cool. Support the barrels underneath.

[terry]

I'll go along with Sharpy guys, bead blasting works well, but will destroy your engine if any of those tiny glass beads make their way into the lubricant, which they inevitably will.

I had my little 350/4 engine blasted years ago, looked fantastic after I painted it, but I spent days washing every possible orifice again and again to ensure everything was removed prior to reassembly, then I ran the engine for 30 minutes and dropped the oil and filter and replaced them, just in case.

Acid dipping isn't quite as efficient as blasting, but is a heck of a lot safer. I asked a professional motorcycle restorer what method he used, and when I mentioned bead blasting engines, he just shuddered..........

[Anonymous]

Re: Clean engine

What about acid dipping. Did my complete engine turned out nice with just a couple of flecks of paint left on it. Complete strip down requided. Oil gallery end plate(behind clutch),shift forks, cylinder sleeves o-rings & gear lever shaft seal. Even gave them a can of WD40 to spray valve seats and things like that so as not to rust until I picked it up. $35 was the cost about 5 years ago. If it has a silver engine the bottom case is not painted as standard and comes up nice using steelwool soap-pads. VHT universal allumium engine paint was used for the rest and you would be hard pressed to get paint as close. Everything was baked in my oven at 180F for a hour then left to cool in the oven. Watch out for the sleeves lifting a few mms. If this happens just push them back into place and place something flat on top until they cool. Support the barrels underneath.

But will this "acid dipping" get the white-powdery corrosion off? Will it make my engine look new? I've heard that glass-beading, while time consumer witht the cleaning afterwards, is the best method for bringing an old engine back to looking new. Any thoughts?

Rudi

[terry]

Re: Clean engine

But will this "acid dipping" get the white-powdery corrosion off? Will it make my engine look new? I've heard that glass-beading, while time consumer witht the cleaning afterwards, is the best method for bringing an old engine back to looking new. Any thoughts?

No, it probably won't take the corrosion off, but we're talking about stripping your engine down to the bare cases anyway, so once they've been acid stripped, just use some wet and dry sand paper and sand off any corrosion, then "etch prime" your bare cases (etch primer makes paint stick to aluminium, if Suzuki had done that in the first place you wouldn't have to do it now) then paint the cases whatever color you like, if you use engine "heat paint" cook the cases in your oven for an hour or so, (but don't put your lunch in there with it, it gives off a rather unpleasant odour) let it cool in the oven, then re-assemble your engine and providing you've done it properly, it'll go as well as it looks!

[Anonymous]

I'll go along with Sharpy guys, bead blasting works well, but will destroy your engine if any of those tiny glass beads make their way into the lubricant, which they inevitably will.

But this wouldn't matter if I glass beaded it...THEN took the engine apart and cleaned out the insides thoroughly, right? Sounds like the glass beading does the best overall job. Then I could put some sort of protective coating on the engine..which would hopefully preserve the new look. Put the engine back together and I'd be set...right?

In regards to the "etch priming" my engine...that seems incredibly tedious. How would you get betweent the fins? Besides, I don't want to paint my engine any color. Just get it new looking..and put some sort of clear protective coating over it.

Then again, I have no experience with this stuff. Feel free to correct me where I'm wrong. :-)

[Anonymous]

Where I work they needed to "sandblast" some paint, off the curbs, but didn't want to have to cleanup all the sand afterwards so they had a company come in and blast it with dry ice. This worked really well and left no residue behind (the dry ice evaporates into CO2 almost instantly).

Anyone ever heard of doin this to a bike engine? If so would it be comporable to bead blasting?

[hp1000s]

There's a company local to me that does on-site dry-ice blasting to remove anti-fouling bottom paint from boat bottoms to eliminate toxic cleanup. I think the medium(dry ice pellets) might be too large in size to get into all the small nooks and crannies in the castings. It'd be great if the technology was adaptable!
Hugh

[BriTXbike]

I'm not looking to do my engine block but something more like my luggage rack. Anyone ever used this product?

http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?vertical=TOOL&bidsite=&pid=00918635000&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes