Cleaning those Ugly Yellowed fork tubes.

OK guys/gals, I've been reading about all kinds of ways to clean the ugly yellowed clear coat off of our front forks. Most people seem to think you need power tools with various abrasive wheels on um to get the yellow off. I'm here to tell you that's BS.
The easiest way to remove that ugly yellowed clear coat is with Acetone and a rag. Pour Acetone into ??? (I used an old dish pan) Soak the rag real good, wet the whole thing and start applying a little elbow grease. Most of it will wipe right off. The hardest part is getting it out of all the small corners and such like around the brake caliper and fender mounts. Five minuted later you'll have a near new looking lower fork tube. Then if you like you can use a small polishing wheel and rubbing compound to really bring um to life.

Here's some before and after pix. The first pic is after just cleaning one with Acetone. The second is both tubes after cleaning and a little polishing. Wow!!! What a difference.

Looks good. Marvel Mystery oil is good for cleaning aluminum too.
Steve

It looks like that Acetone works really well! Ed

Thank you for sharing, this method will save a lot of work.

Agreed. Mystery oil works pretty good for cleaning and polishing bare aluminum surfaces. Helps protect it too.

I was amazed on how well Acetone made short work of removing the yellowed clear coat from my fork tubes. Definitely saved me a lot of time. Didn't risk scratching the finish with abrasives either.
Afterwords I polished um a little with some Turtle Wax rubbing compound and then put on a coat of regular Turtle Wax. (No, I'm not promoting Turtle Wax products. Their just what I had on hand) Did do a pretty good job though.

I plan to reclean mine and use some clear engine coat next time I have them off. New seals so it will be a while.
Steve

It's hard tell by the photo, but I don't think that's yellowed clear coat. Clear coat typically flakes/cracks/peels and doesn't yellow evenly. I believe your forks were anodized. They would have had a yellow/gold color when new, that fades with UV exposure. Anodizing is an electro-bonding process that seals the pores and create a protective layer on alloys for corrosion protection. The yellow is a dye added for appearance.
The forks do look good. Just keep a good coat of wax on them for protection.

MDZ1rider wrote: It's hard tell by the photo, but I don't think that's yellowed clear coat. Clear coat typically flakes/cracks/peels and doesn't yellow evenly. I believe your forks were anodized. They would have had a yellow/gold color when new, that fades with UV exposure. Anodizing is an electro-bonding process that seals the pores and create a protective layer on alloys for corrosion protection. The yellow is a dye added for appearance.
The forks do look good. Just keep a good coat of wax on them for protection.

Anodized huh. I don't think so. Before I cleaned them I could scratch the yellow off with my finger nail. Never seen anything anodized that you could simply scratch off or be able to remove it by dissolving it with a petroleum product.
Sorry ... but I'm not buying it. I'm gonna need a little more convincing before I believe our lower fork tubes were factory anodized clear, yellow/gold or any other color. If we were talking about a new crotch rocket or mx bike I might agree with you. I've seem those with color anodized fork tubes. But not on our 35+ year old cruisers.

But thanks for noticing how AWESOME they look. LOL!!!
Robert

You're correct. They were not yellow when they left the factory. Ed

Wow, now that's funny. I had put that same pic on my post to show what new fork tubes looked like but decided to remove it.
I guess it's true when they say great minds think alike.. LOL!!!

Mine were yellow as well. I took some good grit paper to the bottoms. Finished with 2000 grit. Cleaned off and polished with Mother's Aluminum Polish. Looks great.

I'll keep the acetone and MMO in mind for future uses.

Anodizing is a process where the aluminum is first etched and some of the surface is removed - then aluminum oxide (the same stuff that is used on many sanding belts) is formed on the surface, sometimes with color. This makes the surface much harder, although there are 2 different processes that I know of, one is color with a little hardness and the other is much harder. You can scratch them but they will not flake. On critical sized parts it is difficult to maintain such things as bearing fits.