TOPIC:

RESULTS OF TWO HEAVY TREATMENTS OF PHOSPHORIC ETCH ON MY ENGINE: insufficient.

I'm gonna next blast the motor in place -- I'm not even going to bother with soda blasting --

QUESTION:

- do I use glass for the abrasive to clean up the motor?

- or do I use sand?

- or walnut shells?

Let me know because I want to go to Harbor Freight today and buy a media blaster and I don't know which of glass, sand or walnut shell to buy.


HERE ARE THE POST-PHOSPHORIC ACID ETCH PHOTOS.
(NOTE: After I rinsed the phosphoric etch off the engine, I used WD40 and both a green and a purple Scotch pad and these photos show the total results after all my efforts thus far to remove the whitish deposits):

THIS IS NOT CONCOURSE


HEARTBREAKING SHIBBY-DOO-HAH ON THIS ONE



THAT WHITE TRASH DONT WANNA GO



"STUCK ON YOU..."

I was reading a thread here and dont remember who posted it, but I do remember that if you blast with sand it will give you a flat finish and if you blast with glass it gives you a polished finish,which looks much better and pictures where included in that post, perhaps someone who read s this will know the post.

Question at this time,doesnt this bike have ingravings on it? Could this bike be a VIPs bike ? How much does this engraving cost nowadays?

I don't know what to do about the painted cases and jugs , I wish I did , I have a 1015 that needs to be done too.
But before you blast it with anything , please try some WD-40 and scotch brite on that clutch cover.

If you are selling any of the engraved parts Let me know.They would look good polished!

Are you planning on splitting the cases?

I would only use soda if you aren't going to remove the engine. You can seal it up all you want but you will never be able to keep the media from getting in. If you are going to pull the engine and split the cases just degrease and power wash it now then once it's out send the cass out to get vapor blasted or glass bead them.

If you want to polish out the covers, remove them and start with a sisal buffing wheel.

bluej58 wrote: I don't know what to do about the painted cases and jugs , I wish I did , I have a 1015 that needs to be done too.
But before you blast it with anything , please try some WD-40 and scotch brite on that clutch cover.

If you read above here, I mention with a batch of the latest photos, it's about 6 posts before this one (not counting this one) and it's the most recent post I made before this one -- you'll read and see the results of wd40 -- insufficient.

I'm convinced the chroming process is behind this, any old regular aluminum oxidation would have waved the white flag when I doused the motor with phosphoric etch.

My enemy is the whitish whatever deposits that are all that's left of however they put the chrome onto my aluminum engine covers.

I just got back from Harbor Freight tools here locally in Silicon Valley, and I bought some new weapons:






TOMORROW AT SUNRISE. Master blaster of disaster. Who is pissed but determined. I aint messin around no more with it, party's over.
Will be making a bit of progress. Photos to come, before glass/after glass.

By the way, this glass abrasive material is nearly $1 per pounds, a couple threads on the board here describe buying a 50-pound bag of sand at Lowes or Home Depot and running it through a strainer then using that cheaper sand for blasting.

What are possible downsides to that cheaper sand? Will it work as an abrasive effectively?

Charles Nix wrote: Question at this time,doesnt this bike have ingravings on it? Could this bike be a VIPs bike ? How much does this engraving cost nowadays?

Not sure what you mean there by VIP, the engravings are Harley-custom-esque and the engravrings were applied to the chrome finish put on the engine bits.

The fact that you can still see the engravings after all the chrome's come off means I gotta come with an excuse ("I like it that way", "I'm too freaking cheap to replace it", "it's Indian art and I'm 1/8 Chippewa", "My daughter did that for me", "Not sure how it got there, I woke up and found it like that after leaving the bike outside during one of my runs", "Engravings? Oh, those came stock with the bike, those are ancient Japanese Kanji inscriptions, it was an option you could special-order from the factory back in the day").

Dang engravings. You can't help but honor the craftsmanship but heck, it aint a Harley is it.

I'm probably going to end up reducing the engravings to barely-readable after I'm done blasting and polishing everything anyway.

Opps, missed it sorry

I've been reading up on chrome removal on aluminum and it looks like acid baths with lots of electricity is a common solution, but it is something that a metal finisher would have to do.

First the chrome , then the nickle undercoating , two different baths.

Blasting it will probably get it off, but chrome is some tuff stuff as you know and I would be very careful not to over do an area with exposed aluminum.

The painted stuff is another thing,I hope you can shed some light on this for me.

Good luck today,

JD

bluej58 wrote: Opps, missed it sorry

I've been reading up on chrome removal on aluminum and it looks like acid baths with lots of electricity is a common solution, but it is something that a metal finisher would have to do.

First the chrome , then the nickle undercoating , two different baths.

Blasting it will probably get it off, but chrome is some tuff stuff as you know and I would be very careful not to over do an area with exposed aluminum.

The painted stuff is another thing,I hope you can shed some light on this for me.

Good luck today,

JD

Thanks for the info about chrome removal -- in my case, the 30 years that passed since this bike was left sitting outside near the ocean had the effect of loosening the bond under the chrome -- when I got the bike a couple weeks back, I had hoped that I'd be able to preserve all the chromed parts because of those engravings.

The prior owner (deceased since the bike was parked back in the early 80s) surely spent a lot of money on the engravings on his bike. I wanted to save it.

I was really, really bummed out when the chrome just came off in flakes.

Only the forks still have the chrome and they are not Z1R forks at all. The family kept his bike these past 3 decades as a reminder that he once lived a happy life there and I wanted to give all the chrome pieces back to the family, maybe now only the chrome forks will make it their way as they are 'chopper' forks which I won't use. The remnants of the engravings in the other bits will vanish after blasting I suspect.

Sure glad it is you doing the experiments and not me. Thanks.

I would think the glass beads would be damn expensive to just blow out into the environment. I thought they were used in a cabinet.

Sand for the blaster you are showing. But wear a good mask. silicosis I think.
And cover up for abrasive coming back at you.

Soap Box preaching over.