Polishing tips

Tim L

XS650 Addict
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Does anyone have any tips on polishing up an XS2 engine and painting the barrels/top end black.
Phase 2 of my restoration is the engine and I would like to shine it up a bit from top to bottom.
Should I lacquer the bottom end after polishing?
Does engine temperature affect the lacquer?

Tim.
 
About a quart size tub of elbow grease?
I don't know what you know, but here are a few of my "tips"
Start with a soapy wash and a pressure wash if you can.
Covers, things you want shiny.
Get the clear off It really speeds things up to use stripper and remove what remains of the clear paint first.
Depending on how bad the corrosion is use increasingly fine wet sand paper to remove it and get a consistent patina over the whole piece. I normally end with 600 before going to the the buffing compound
Use rouge sticks and a buffing wheel mounted in a pedestal grinder to bring up the shine. Wear gloves mask and glasses the part will get very hot and the threads wearing off the polishing pad get everywhere.
I am sure there are many good brands but blue magic chrome cleaner is a good choice. There are a lot of POOR brands of chrome cleaner out there, the difference is huge.
I alway go get a couple of packs of REAL brass brushes for removing rust from chrome They have to be all brass many are brass plated steel which will ruin (scratch) chrome. Walmart sells three for $3.00 in the paint dept. dip it in the chrome cleaner and have at it. the brass bristles are soft and will mat down figur on using up all three on one bike. I have found mineral spirits to be a good engine cleaner degunker it is flammable so use it outside.
a semi gloss silver helps the cases look their best, depending on how far part the engine is going a small paint brush and spray rattle can silver in the cap and brush on in problem areas.
 
The plague of older bike restoration. I've had luck with strippng the clear, sanding and polishing. Rough cast fins and barrels - media blast. Of course as stated above clean well and paint. Duplicolor has a wide variety of engine paint colors that hold help well if the metal is prepped properly. I'ved used gloss black , low gloss black, cast aluminium (looks quite original) with excellent results. See my roadster build post low gloss black with polished fin edges.
 
Lacquer is the reason the cases, rims,etc look like crap in the first place. Moisture gets under the lacquer and oxidizes the aluminum. Also heat and age turn the lacquer yellow. Some good advice from gggGary and gentlemanjim on how to get things looking good again...........BG
 
Here are a couple of quick cleaning pics 20 minutes elapsed time between the two.

xsdrum 006.jpg

xsdrum 007.jpg

Just to see how well it works before I hauled this out to the curb for trash pick up.
 
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