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Cleaning up aluminum covers on 82 GS1100

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
Suzukian said:
You can wire brush to get the look, but if you had a milling machine to get the wire brush wheel for an O.E.M. look you might be able to pull it off. There's no way for that finish to last though. The clear coat gets water under it, and if you leave it unpainted, it corrodes and looks cr@ppy. ;)
Click to expand...

When we want to preserve the polished or raw aluminum look, we use a two step chemical process from our paint manufacturer. The first step is to clean the parts with an Aluminum Cleaner that basically is blended to remove oils and break any aluminum oxide corrosion that has formed on the surface. And then the second step is to force an aluminum oxide reaction with Aluminum Prep, which creates an even layer of aluminum oxide across the entire part. Once those two steps are done, we can apply clear coat over the part to lock in the look and protect the part from additional corrosion. We have been doing this quite a bit with cosmetically damaged allow wheels. Instead of ordering a new $1500 polished wheel, we can fix it and refinish it for a couple hundred dollars.

By doing it this way, we can replicate the OEM look on wheels and other "raw" aluminum parts. I haven't tried it on the case covers on a motorcycle (yet) but I would wager that it would work well.

The two products that we use are from Axalta (formerly DuPont). 225S is the cleaner and 226S is the prep.
 
The Suzuki's, that model anyways, came wist a very even brushed in on direction surface with a thick clear coat. Not sure how Suzuki did it, but that is the look people are trying to get. When I purchased the bike, I knew that clear coat would not last. Mine is now, on certain covers polished bright, not overly bright, but looks good, and since my bike is parked indoors, I have found over the last year I haven't had to touch it, except for a drop of water that polished off with rouge in 2 seconds. For me personally, I'd never clear coat a part again. When I restored my CB400F hubs, as I was lacing them with Stainless Steel spokes and Gold Anodized Aluminum D.I.D. rims,I sprayed the glass bead blasted and cleaned hubs with High Temperature Aluminum Paint, When that dried, I then clear coated them. It looks exactly like the Factory Honda engine pained surfaces. 25 years on, it still looks the same way. ;)
 
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