31 year old rubber not holding up so well...

[Schming]

Looks like I will have to give the foil/acid method a try. The aluminum on this bike definitely needs some help. It spent way too much of it's life out in the New Mexico sun.

Hi clcorbin, If Your'e going to remove the side covers,valve cover and other parts to polish You may want to get a peice of styrofoam to stick the screws into in some way that you'll remember where the long and short ones go. Some of the wire retentsion brackets are also on specific screws. pics before disassembly would also pay off. I used Permatex gasket remover first on any part that I was going to polish as it easily removes all the old clear coat.(spray on generously,wait 10 or 15min.,don't let dry if so spray again,then rinse with water,dry) Next I used whatever was necessary. What I mean by that is I used whatever abrasive from just buffing to a mirror finish on some parts to carefully filing PO road rash off of the pickup coil/timing cover then an orbital sander thru the different grits then a half worn out peice of Scotch Brite(to remove swirl marks left by sander) to finally buff with brown,red then white rouge and hand polish with Mothers Billet Aluminum Polish til I could see my fingerprints in the reflection It's work but if You love what You do it equates to FUN

[clcorbin]

Hi clcorbin, If Your'e going to remove the side covers,valve cover and other parts to polish You may want to get a peice of styrofoam to stick the screws into in some way that you'll remember where the long and short ones go. Some of the wire retentsion brackets are also on specific screws. pics before disassembly would also pay off. I used Permatex gasket remover first on any part that I was going to polish as it easily removes all the old clear coat.(spray on generously,wait 10 or 15min.,don't let dry if so spray again,then rinse with water,dry) Next I used whatever was necessary. What I mean by that is I used whatever abrasive from just buffing to a mirror finish on some parts to carefully filing PO road rash off of the pickup coil/timing cover then an orbital sander thru the different grits then a half worn out peice of Scotch Brite(to remove swirl marks left by sander) to finally buff with brown,red then white rouge and hand polish with Mothers Billet Aluminum Polish til I could see my fingerprints in the reflection It's work but if You love what You do it equates to FUN

That sounds like your method gets the best results, but REALLY requires a full on buffing machine to do it in my lifetime! Of course, Grizzly sells bench mount buffers and the wheels for not too much money...

[Schming]

That sounds like your method gets the best results, but REALLY requires a full on buffing machine to do it in my lifetime! Of course, Grizzly sells bench mount buffers and the wheels for not too much money...

Grizzly tools are pretty good. I painstakenly acheived a mirror finish with a regular Craftsman 6" bench grinder minus the gaurds and tool rests, with HF 8'' wheels. I mounted it on a stand so I could manuever the peice. I had to be extremely careful because there isn't enough clearance like a buffer has and the peice would sometimes kick only to have me resand the spot and buff again I'm going to get a stronger buffer as the bench grinder actually bogged down and got very hot. I was looking at something like this;
http://www.caswellplating.com/index.html
Also that site has an amazing amout of info, one of my favorites