Remove rust from chrome headers

[Guest]

My old GS850G is about ready for the road. It runs great but still the past dozen or so years of neglect by the PO left it looking a little funky. I recently used plain white vinegar to clean the fuel tank and being cheap, when I was done with the tank I poured the used vinegar into a 5 Gallon bucket. Well I was just staring at the old girl and the exhaust pipes looked bad. So I tried aluminum foil on the rust and pits and it worked ok. Then I saw on the interweb to dip the foil in tap water and worked pretty good actually. Still searching I saw plenty of videos about using Diet Coke instead of water. Well we don't drink Coke or Diet anything so rather than go out and buy a can, remember I'm cheap, I used my left over Vinegar instead of water or Coke. I figured if vinegar will eat rust and aluminum foil removes rust from chrome, why not combine them. Wow did that work good. Here are some before and after pics. This literally took less than a minute of scrubbing with the foil dipped in plain used vinegar:






Took about 3 more minutes to clean all 4.




Now do they look new. NO. Not by any stretch but they look a lot better and I'm thinking some chrome polish will make them look even better.

[Deuce]

That did work well! When you can afford it, get some fine steel wool and a good metal polish. I use Blue Magic and was able to clean up some really rusted areas, like you did.

[Runeight]

I watched a video where a guy used Marvel Mystery Oil and a shop towel. Let soak for a bit. Worked really well as I plan on giving it a go myself.

[Crankthat]

Nice, thanks for the share

[jdvorchak]

I watched a video where a guy used Marvel Mystery Oil and a shop towel. Let soak for a bit. Worked really well as I plan on giving it a go myself.

I saw a video about using MMO and a rag on the aluminum side covers. I tried it and all it did was clean the surface. Didn't really do much. As for aluminum foil and MMO that would probably work too but on exhaust it would smoke a bit the first time you run the engine I would think. The science behind aluminum foil and a liquid is that the aluminum foil is soft enough not to scratch the chrome. The heat from the friction of rubbing causes rust to de-oxidize and release as small particles. The liquid just holds the particles in suspension so it acts like a polishing compound. I just decided that vinegar would hurry the process along because it actually dissolves rust. Regardless of the science it works better that I thought it would. So one more trick in the book.

[jdvorchak]

That did work well! When you can afford it, get some fine steel wool and a good metal polish. I use Blue Magic and was able to clean up some really rusted areas, like you did.

Steel wool is all I used to use. I never liked the way the steel wool would make a dusty mess but it works very well. I have a KZ550 that I'm working on with rusted pipe, but not as bad as these were. I'll try steel wool and metal polish on the KZ. I use either turtle wax chrome polish or Mothers metal polish if the chrome is just dirty and needs cleaned and shiny. I never thought of using a steel wool (0000) with the polish.

This place is great for sharing and advising! Thank you all.

[loud et]

Last time I had a large chrome item to clean rust from ( a vintage ujm luggage rack) I filled a plastic garbage can with water and washing soda and used the rust removal electrolysis method. Just need a battery charger , a little wire, and a metal rod.
I was amazed. It came out 100% rust free and gleaming chrome.
Not sure if you feel like pulling the exhaust, but there would be no better way to completely remove the rust from a set of chrome headers.
Also it leaves zero scratches.

[loud et]

If you remove the exhaust you will probably break a few exhaust bolts and will be cussing me. lol

You could throw those case savers in there too! They will come out about spotless.

[steve murdoch]

Excellent results on the pipes, John.
All this talk about vinegar, now i need some french fries.

[jdvorchak]

I just got some fries at Wendy's...Yum

[jdvorchak]

If you remove the exhaust you will probably break a few exhaust bolts and will be cussing me. lol

You could throw those case savers in there too! They will come out about spotless.

I'm not doing a restore on this bike. Just cleaning it up now that I have it running. When it's raining outside I can think of all kinds of things to piddle with in the garage. Cleaning the headers was that day's piddling. I have to change the tires/tubes on her as well. So next I'm thinking is "How do I clean up those nasty looking forks?". I done forks from just cleaning with solvent to sanding and polishing to a chrome like finish. This will be somewhere in between. The fork seals aren't leaking but I may just take it apart and clean the old smelly fork oil and see if any bushings are worn. New seals and dust caps are probably not that much money anyway. With almost 30k miles on this bike it could use some love.

[jdvorchak]

Ok just looked at a parts fiche. No bushings in Suzuki forks? Anyway for about $50 in parts I can replace the seals and dust caps. Or I see they have a drain screw in near the bottom to just drain and re-fill.... Well the tire is coming off so I might as well take the forks off too. But that is for another thread.