Polished engine

I decided to clean up the engine a bit as it was really tarnished. Anyone do this to their bike? I just started. Wondering how well it will turn out. When Takes a bit of patience.

Original


After

The really good news is that once you finish polishing it you will find it is VERY easy to keep it looking good. Your patience and work will be rewarded. Ed

Looking good, but that's the easy section :lol:

Like Ed said once your done keeping it up is a piece of cake.

Agreed it was the easy part, but I figured it was better to start with the easy part just incase I was doing it wrong. I made quite a bit of progress tonight in between demands to clean this and move that... Women... I will be riding it tomorrow to work for the first time, then coming home and polishing it up.

Is it chemistry or muscle power (a fine grained sand-paper maybe?)?

Your doing just fine...
Keep at it for as already mentioned, it will be worth the hard effort & work in the end...

If my old retarded ass can do it so can you...

You did one hell of a job on that engine!

Also I am using both muscle power, machine power and chemistry.

i am:
Using a drill with a 120 grain or so scotch bright type wheel and going all over each piece in little circles until I feel it is evenly smoothed out, although this does leave quite a bit of small scuff lines.

Then going back over it by hand with 1000 grain wet dry sand paper for quite a while with a little soapy water.

Then using blue magic polish and a dremmel with a cloth bit to work in the polish, and a felt tip to buff it down afterwards.

If anyone has a better solution I am all open for suggestions.

I just did my engine covers, float bowls, carb diaphragm caps, footpeg brackets, forks, triple tree, and darn near every bolt on the bike. I heard that on aluminum you are better off to put down a clear coat when finished to keep it in shape. What is the experience here? Wonder if I coulda got away with a couple coats of wax. It doesn't sparkle quite the same with the clear coat over it.

You might find that doing an 800 dry to start is better. 120 is pretty gritty for aluminum. I'm doing mine right now, and I find that an 800 dry to start, 1000 wet next, 2000 wet, lastly a 3000 wet followed by polish works the best. Mirror shine. I know it adds more to the process, but it'll increase the end look.

Also- might want to look into Gord's Aluminum Polish. It's a cleaner/polish/sealer all in one. I used it on my swingarm, and it hasn't oxidized at all in over 2 months. Not bad in my books.

Hmm. I think I will try that tomorrow. Thanks. Not concerned with more work. Mostly concerned with end product. Id rather spend 30 hours doing an amazing job than 3 doing an okay one.

Depending on the current condition of your cases, you might have to start at a 400 grit or so to really take the staining out, then move up. What you can also do is get a polishing kit that runs off your drill with 3 polishing compounds, and go about it that way once you're over a 1000 grit. Speeds it up, and really smooths the aluminum out.

I think you are doing a pretty good job. I polished mine also. I started out with the scotch brite wheel and then wet sanded it with 800 grit and went up to 1500 or 2000 grit. Then went over it with white diamond metal polish on harbor freight buffing wheels on a drill and i bought a couple extra thin but big diameter to make it easier to get inside the fins. Then just buff the hell out of it. Then after that i got another buffing wheel. I dont mix the polishes in the buffs. I went over it again with mother alum polish. The white diamond is a ruffer grit so it wont get rid of all the scratch marks, but it will really bring out the mirror finish. Then the mothers will remove the rest of the scratch marks and really make it shine.