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aluminum polishing

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bubbu

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Polishing up the covers on my 87 sporty, and what I thought was oxidation isn't. I put some cleaner/polisher on a small spot that looks like etching and no black goop at all. My thought is that when new, harley puts on some kind of protective film. If so, I also assume that I could use paint stripper to remove that coating. There are different size spots all over the covers and again it looks like etching. I'm cleaning, or should I say grinding 33 years of oxidation off of the motor with a Dremel for the most part. A lot of wet sanding etc.etc. If anybody was crazy enough to do this, any tips on removal of the oxidation would be "EXTREMELY" helpful.
 
Mothers makes an aluminum polish for rims, something you could try with a scotch brite pad.
 
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Sounds like there's a clear coat on there to keep it shiny longer. That will have to come off. Try aircraft gel paint remover for a short period. The best I've found for polishing aluminum is Happich Semichrome. Makes the 20's on the Yukon shine like chrome!
 
I consider myself pretty good with alum. polishing. Harley puts a clear coat on that is not hard to remove. Paint stripper, oven cleaner, acetone and other harsh solvents take it off. Then comes the decision of how shiny do you want it. You can use wet/dry sandpaper from 320 down to 2000 to get a flat surface. Or just polishing the natural alum. will give you a good glow. Any kind of auto paint scratch remover will work, but there are many good special alum polishes. I prefer Mothers mag & alum. Simichrome may be the best, but it's kinda pricy for a small amount. Like everything, the amount of effort put into the job is what your resuts look like. I wish I had photos on the 'puter of my '87 XLH covers but that was pre digital and I didn't scan them into the 'puter. This is my '07 Electra glide forks and polished brake rotor. The cowbell above fork slider is chrome for comparison.
 

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Thanks guys, I'm along way from using polish, my engine and I mean the whole engine is almost black from oxidation. I'm using a dremel to grind away layers of oxidation. When I look close I can see layers of it. It takes forever but I know when I get to the original metal, you can see the shine and then I'll sand it down to where I can use polish. I ordered flap disks for dremel to see if that will work on tight spots. I'm having a hard time getting the oxidation out of the small channels or whatever they are called under the cylinders on left side of motor block, hopefully the flap disks will work. Thank god I'm retired, this is going to take time. My friends think I'm nuts and I'm beginning to agree with them,but I'll show them. Yeah right!!!!!!!!!!
 
There used to be a company that advertised in Thunder Press. Darned if I can remember their name now but it was something like "chrome exchange". I actually sent lots of parts to them for chroming. But they also took your spoke mags and stripped them down and hand polished them to look like chrome. Hit up YouTube to see if you can find any vids on that. Its the same with polishing your motor and diamond cutting the heads. Long and tedious but well worth it.
 
For the initial rough work, I like a 3" or larger cotton buffing wheel. Put it in a drill motor and go at it with the compound of choice (using the outside edge of the buff). When it gets clogged up with compound & alum, just hold it against a wire brush to get it cleaned up for the next round. Buffs are less than $10 at home improvement stores or harbor freight. I find metal polishing relaxing because I always do it when I'm not in a hurry to get out and ride. It does require a lot of rags though.
 
Breeze3at said:
I consider myself pretty good with alum. polishing. Harley puts a clear coat on that is not hard to remove. Paint stripper, oven cleaner, acetone and other harsh solvents take it off. Then comes the decision of how shiny do you want it. You can use wet/dry sandpaper from 320 down to 2000 to get a flat surface. Or just polishing the natural alum. will give you a good glow. Any kind of auto paint scratch remover will work, but there are many good special alum polishes. I prefer Mothers mag & alum. Simichrome may be the best, but it's kinda pricy for a small amount. Like everything, the amount of effort put into the job is what your resuts look like. I wish I had photos on the 'puter of my '87 XLH covers but that was pre digital and I didn't scan them into the 'puter. This is my '07 Electra glide forks and polished brake rotor. The cowbell above fork slider is chrome for comparison.
Click to expand...
Those fork legs came up beautifully.
Top job.
A tip I’ve found that works on the Aluminium cases of my 1975 Suzuki Gt 750 is to put some WD40 on a scotch brite pad and rub onto your surface. Keeping the pad wet with the WD.
Then wipe it off and polish up with your favourite brand of polish.
I too prefers to use Mothers.
 
For removing the oxidation you could try Barkeepers friend, I used it on my Al wheel that used to be on my Softail, just needed to rinse well after using it. As many said polishes for Al are plentiful but Mothers seems to give the best results.
 
For my 93 sportster i used a gel paint stripper to remove the clear coat from the engine covers then polished on a bench polisher using different mops and compounds till i got the required results
i then did a new coating of bare metal clear coat
i did remove all the covers from the bike when i removed the cam cover some of the cams came out and had to be re aligned i took the rocker covers off to lift the relevant push rods to get the cams back into place however rocker covers also needed striipping polishing and re coating

Brian
 
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