How do you do it

[Elevener]

I have seen alot of nicely polished shiny motors on here. Mine is 30 years of no polish.

What tools and compounds do you use? I realize to do it right the motor needs to come out but I need to get what can while installed. and how the heck do you do the fins?

[mack]

I'm in the same boat. Mine sat exposed for 18 years and I'm trying to clean it up some just to see what I'm dealing with. I read the polishing tips several times and tried each method. I pulled the valve cover and the two lower covers timing etc and tried a method on each one to see what worked best. The valve cover was in the worst shape. For me what worked the best was, the aircraft cleaner followed by the emery paper and a lot of hard work then shined with autosol. It took me a week on the valve cover but it really came up nice so it's what I'll go with.Since mine is a full tear down and restore I'm not overly concerned with the time it takes as long as it's worth it. And this was.

[petejw]

hey guys,
heres a thread i started about engine polishing.


http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20687

the results are well worth the effort.

cpl of pics...

[motoman]

We all just have REALLY good cameras.

[fredintoon]

I have seen alot of nicely polished shiny motors on here. Mine is 30 years of no polish.

What tools and compounds do you use? I realize to do it right the motor needs to come out but I need to get what can while installed. and how the heck do you do the fins?

Hi Elevener,
it's a special compound. 10% Mother's & 90% elbow grease.
Or do a complete teardown, get the castings vapor-blasted and machine-polish the edges of the fins.
But personally, my XS11 motor gets washed once a year whether it needs it or not.

[mro]

A bench grinder and a hand drill motor helped do this without removing engine.





Buffing wheels and compound I got from Harbor Freight tools (less than $20.00)

Some parts were so bad they needed to be filed then sanded. What ever sand paper I started with wound up finishing with 1000 grit before polishing.
Palm sander saved a lot of time but can be done by hand.

mro

[foreda]

Polishing

For the small stuff on the bike, I use a Dremel tool with pads I buy from Lowes and use different grits of jewelers rouge. Then you can maintain with Maguires or Semichrome polish.

[XJOK2PLAY]

Elevener,

Another thing that can be done to the engine that makes it look good... besides buffing) is to paint it all black, let it dry for about a day, then take some fine sandpaper on a block and sand the fins... take your time, and it looks great.

I did this to mine, as well as removed the valve cover, painted it all black, let dry, then sanded the raised fins & edges...

Then like the others have said... buff, buff, buff until the chrome shines.

It's a lot of work & time, but really pays off.

[Unclefacts]

Some nice lookin mills in this thread. MRO, what kind of coating is that on your headers? Ceramic?

[TajMan]

I'm building my bike now, painting my frame a candy red with pearl airbrushed tribal graphics etc.

I'm going to do my engine black not polished chrome. Its out of the bike now.

I need to clean it well, scuff up well, and paint it with some type of hi-temp paint. I might do a combo of gloss black / flat black on parts of the engine, and I think I'll sand the edge of fins down so they are silver.

freakin awesome if I end up with a custom turbo manifold and exhaust/muffler that are painted with flat black exhaust paint baked on. I'd like to have VERY little silver/chrome left anywhere on the bike.

[Elevener]

Polished aluminium looks so much better than chrome. Back in the old days I had a .....well lets just say I had another bike. I hand polished it over the years with semi-chrome polish. I no longer have the want or years to hand polish but hate the 30 year old oxidation.

Crap, I knew there are no shortcuts but was sure looking for one. I have to admit, as years go by I enjoy riding but dont really enjoy maintaining anymore.

I was hoping for a miracle, battery powered application that would yield miraculous results.

Thanks for the replies y'all.

[DGXSER]

MRO,

I would love to see the tools you used like what did you have on the bench grinder and what did you chuck up n the hand drill?

I bought soem 220 sand paper to start the process on the project I am wokring on for the worse case areas, then I have soem 600 grit and bought some 1000 grit. I also have rubbing compound, and some Mothers aluminum polish.

Thanks for any additional guidance on the proper tools. I tried to polish my seat grba bar the other night but after two hours with a 6" by 1" polishing wheel on my bench grinder with the brown polishing stick, I am barely down to dull aluminum look instead of the white oxidized look.

[mro]

Tools

8" spiral bound
Supposed to be for initial buffing, but does a pretty good job on aluminum



The drill motor has a 3 1/2 inch buffing wheel. Came with a couple others and the drill attachment. These buffing wheels are for finishing/polishing. The grey compound is for "fast cut" and white for polishing. Got em from Harbor freight tools in Fremont.



On the SF I had used 100 (for the bad spots) then 400 then 600 and then 1000.
Tonight I spent about an hour and a half on this clutch cover.
I used some 100 grit paper to remove some bad pits and scratches then 400 grit to remove the 100 grit scratches.



Looks like it's coming along w/o going all the way to the 1000 grit

mro
BTW, any blemish you can see while sanding will still be there when you buff it out. Can get some of them out with buffing but takes longer than sanding em out first. If you have cleaned and sanded the part real well then the buffing goes fast.

TAKE PRECAUTIONS, don’t breath the aluminum dust etc......

[DGXSER]

Thanks for the pics and info!! I have an assortment of sanders palm and detail sander for my wood working hobby.

Will head to HF tomorrow evening to look for some of those materials and some breathing mask to keep the dust out!

[mro]

Hi Unclefacts

The rattle can stuff I used on the exhaust is 1200 stove paint which is supposed to be ceramic based. The jury is still out on how it will hold up.
About 20 hours of prep time and 10 minutes painting. A day or so after I finished the exhaust the guys who powder coated the fenders for me said I should have brought it down and they would have would have bead blasted it for free


mro