cosmetic appeal of engine, cleaning it-- how ??

My engine needs to match the cosmetic appeal of the rest of the bike's chrome and paint which are decent, but the engine cases and cylinders have oxidized (prior owner left the bike outside) and look nasty.

Disassembling the motor just to clean and polish it, when the motor runs fine, is out of the question.

I was thinking about buying one of those spray-on engine cleaners and taking a wire brush to the cylinder fins and then put a polishing wheel on my Dremel or my hand drill to clean up the aluminum engine cases.

What's the best way to restore the look of the motor?
It's a 1978 kz1000 A2 standard model.

I use 50% elbow grease, 25% S100 Cycle restorer, and 25% Xtreem.




S100

Xtreem

SURELY that's a NOS bike there?

Just gorgeous. No way am I ever getting mine that good.


Where can you find S100 Cycle Restorer and Xtreem, and what cleaning tools do you use? Brushes, polishing wheel-on-a-drill, how do you get between the cylinder fins?

After trying many wire brushes with my dremmel I found one at True Value Hardware that worked great and didn't fall apart. Read this post- kzrider.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&...amp;id=312886#313311

Wow that is a visual inspiration, the 'before/after' is a real motivator. I will look for the 1" long brush attachment for my Dremel.

I can't believe how much better your engine looked afterward, thanks Don!

Don, what spray-on or other cleaning product did you use while applying the brush?

newOld_kz1000 wrote:

Where can you find S100 Cycle Restorer and Xtreem, and what cleaning tools do you use? Brushes, polishing wheel-on-a-drill, how do you get between the cylinder fins?

Some bike shops carry S-100 and/or Xtreem. If not in your area, you can find them on the internet. Sometimes they even show up on eBay. (I put some links below). The Xtreem polish is saturated wadding similar to Nevr-Dull only much finer. It worked very well on the cases. The S-100 is a paste. I used a flat stick wrapped in paper towel with S-100 on it to do between the fins and kept changing the paper towel as it turned really black. The main thing is to work on this when you’re not in a hurry. I did mine a couple winters ago when I brought the bike into my basement to replace the steering stem bearings and lower fork tubes. I worked on it an hour or so each night so it didn’t get too boring. Once you get some of it done and see how much better it looks you will be inspired to do the whole engine (I even did the back and bottom of my engine). I found that once it was done it stays nice for a long time. I now polish the whole engine once a year, but because it never gets really funky it only takes an hour or so to do the whole thing. Ed

eBay Xtreem

Xtreem USA

Xtreem

eBay S100

S100

More S100

YOu guys got me thinking about getting my act together with my bike. I am heading to the automotive industrial supplies store today to pick up some tripoli and white cut finishing compound and a couple of buffing wheels.

I will be heading to canadian tire to get a series of buffing disks for my dremmel and a bench grinder for my polishing compound.

The buffing wheeles (2) and 1 bar of tripoli and 1 bar of white comes to a grand total of $80.23 CAN or $76.21 US

I will be polishing until the cows come home.

I already have the required safety gear, ie googles and a mask and I will be buying a set of coveralls, because I am tired of soiling my clothes. PLus it is getting chilly in COwtown.

I will take some before and after photos.
I also have an extra points cover and a set of alternator covers, one 79 and one 77 that I will be sweating over tommorrow and should have the covers ready to ell by Monday.

I am hoping that a wire wheel and the compounds will make the engine shine again. Normally before I got at it, I will give it a handwash with some sunlight soap and a scotch bright kitchen pad. I also use a series of industril grade scotch bright abrasive pads, and steel wool 0000.

I did my fork downtubes 2 weeks ago. After all was polised, I cleaned away the residue with never dull and put on a light coat of Carnuba wax to prevent corosion.

I have a date with the three of my bikes tommorrow in the garage.

Yukabodos

650ed wrote:

I use 50% elbow grease, 25% S100 Cycle restorer, and 25% Xtreem.

S100

Xtreem

I will be tearing my 650 down to change frames that kawsakiman hooked me up with and I will use this pic for inspiration Fabulous job 650ed

In an effort to make my engine look as nice as ed's, I picked up the rubbing compounds.

When I got there I laughed so hard, I expected to see 2 blocks the size of a cassette tape, the girl handed me 2 bricks of rubbing compund 12 inches long, 3 inches wide, 1.5 inches high, 1 red, 1 white. It was a funny moment.

If anyone in Canada wants to buy some rubbing compound, I have got plenty. Shipping costs to the US would make it uneconomical. If you are interested just send a PM I will charge you cost plus shipping. I figure I could polish my bike everyday for 110 years and I would die before I would run out.

easy with the compound if your using a buffer on flat areas,really easy to burn low spots into them.if motor is out of frame id plug all the holes in engine really good then soak it down top to bottem with some stout aluminum wheel cleaner to start with and scrub the hell out of the rough cast parts of engine with fine scuff pads.these also work good between the fins to get major crud off then rinse motor down really good to see what you have.depending on how anal retentive you are about details i like to use a machinist file and ftatten all the cooling fins out and any extra casting flash oncorners and places like that myself.then comes lots and lots of block sanding ,then you can start polishing stuff.

I want to learn more.

I have my engine out and am stripping the paint from the engine now ( PO )

I will be using a drill motor.

What should I get.

Wire wheel? Buffer disks? Paper towels?

That is absolutely gorgeous Ed....

And I thought my engine was clean... :whistle: