Bad chrome on engine covers

Peel the rest off and polish it.

Not gonna be that easy I'm afraid. A lot of the chrome is still bonded to the cover. I think the stuff that came off is leaving the nickel layer on the aluminum... not sure though.

Another issue is that the left side cover is unique to the '81 and I think they were all chromed, and most of the parts I have seen have the chrome bubbling on them. I have sand blasted chrome off steel, but its going to chew the aluminum too much.

I wonder if heat will help some more come off, get the chrome layer hot and maybe it will come loose?

Not sure what I doing with the engine paint, original was silver with chrome covers. I kind of like a black engine with polished covers, though they never came from Kawasaki that way.

Remove the chrome and go black.

Is the cover dished at all or mostly flat? Wondering if a really light pass on a milling machine/lathe might work. Heat may also work but I would imagine it would have to be a lot hotter that the motor gets while running, cant do worse than try I guess. That motor in black would look really good IMO

I got in touch with JR Plating in Minnesota, I told him What I had and he said it would cost about $15 a piece to strip them to bare aluminum, plus shipping both ways its going to be $70 to $80 when all is said and done. Cheaper than buying used ones anyway. Probably cost me that much to make my own plating bath to reverse plate them myself. Then I can paint or polish them.... good riddance too, I hate chrome!

According to the guy at I talked to, as long as they are not copper plated first, and just nickel/chrome its pretty easy to strip them electrochemically without messing up the aluminum.

If you go thru with this please post back and let us know how the parts are when you get them back, I have some chrome parts I'd like to de-chrome :ohmy: and they are mostly sitting in the I'll get to that someday pile :lol:
Thanks
EZ

I took the covers off the engine and shipped them to JR. He quoted me $60 to strip them all. He needs a couple weeks to do it. I sent 6 chrome covers, the stator, the starter, the clutch cover, the timing cover, and the inspection plate, and the clutch adustment cover. I will post some pics when they come back.

Please do.....me needs chrome work done too.

Strip and polish
preferably with a beer in one hand to balance you .

I got the covers back today. I tried to clean up a small spot, a pass with a buffing wheel and some rouge followed by polish should clean them up. The guy charged me $50 to strip them.