Cleaning Up My Pipes

[Guest]

After doing some searching online (and posting in the "Wanted" forums here as well), I decided to give up on finding new pipes and just fix mine up.

Do you guys have any tips? I'm concerned about the inside (for performance reasons) a bit more than the outside (for aesthetics), but I do want them to look nice.

I was going to sand down the rust, spot weld a couple old screw holes shut, and use some sort of paint/polish/chemical to redo the finish.

Any recommendations for cleaning the inside of the pipes and making the chrome look sexy? I'll have to find a rust inhibitor as well. I was thinking just using long pipecleaners to shove inside and get some rust out.

[Nessism]

Cleaning the inside is a waste of time. Just shake out the loose rust and make sure the drain hole passages are clean. Water is a byproduct of combustion and the rust you remove will just come back soon afterwards.

Lots of threads in the archives on how to clean the outside. I recommend regular old chrome cleaner (like Turtle Wax or similar) and a rag.

[Kiwi Canuck]

I got a set of pipes that were similar to yours and they came up pretty good, I used Simple Green to degrease them and then Evaporust to soak the rusty parts in. http://evaporust.ca/ to remove the rust, then Autosol as a metal polish.

http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?cat=1,43415,43439,67014&p=67014

Check out post #278 on in my rebuild thread and see what mine look like now.

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=209217&page=7

BTW there is a little hole in the underside of each pipe near the join, it's supposed to be there, it drains out the condensation after running the bike.

Good luck

[Larry D]

Anything with oxylic (sp?) acid in it will clean the outside. I use Barkeeper's Friend.
Don't worry about the inside.

[gustovh]

brasso and a toothbrush will do a great job for you....do not sand the rust!
V

[cowboyup3371]

I finally got tired of how mine looked and paid ~$165 to have them ceramic coated; looks nice in my opinion