Flap wheel sanding discs can speed things up in the sanding portion of the work on the domes and bowls if you can find them in the proper fine grit. But it still leaves lots of crannies that have to be reached with dremel or by hand.
My CVs had some kinda of hard clear coat that was very tough to remove. It caused splotch stains on the domes where the clear had failed.. Once it was stripped it was'too hard to polish and buff them to a high luster.
The carb bodies look nice when glass beaded but you'll wanna ultrasonically clean them again after a good rinse.
The carb bodies proper, cleaned up nicely with wire brush, carb cleaner, and Scotchbrite. They were grungy, but not corroded. Probably something to do with California's arid climate.
Clear coat had failed everywhere on the bike including the carb runners. I didn't notice any clear coat on the carb vacuum tops.
I don't want to use anything on the aluminum more aggressive than 400, perhaps 320. The scratches get too deep and it takes longer to polish them out. I went looking for 1 inch sanding belts in 400 grit, but there are none locally, that I can find. Seem odd they wouldn't be somewhere in silicon valley. Home Depot, Lowes, Orchard...nada. I think I might just mail order them. But, I may finish polishing before they arrive!
Flap wheels I've tried before on front fork lowers (in 320 grit). I thought the scratches took too long to remove later on.
Today I made a dual buffer out of an old Black and decker 5 " bench grinder. The grinder was an early lesson about the true value of cheap, and I haven't used it in 25 years, and it had the dust and patina to prove it. The project turned out to be much more of an ordeal than I expected.
The wheel shaft arbors were 1/2 inch, and of course all the buffing wheels available use 5/8 arbors and are 6" (AND, too big to fit within the 5" guard) I made 1/2" to 5/8" adapters on my lathe. But, not before the lathe quit with a rather nasty burnt electrical smell. A splice connector box on top of the motor was the culprit. Inside were eight wire connections and screws used to clamp to the wires. Only the builder failed to tighten any of the screws. Conduction was by incidental contact. And as the metals oxidized of the years resistance and heat developed, melting the connector block and making contact worse. Eventually burning wiring insulation and separating the conductors. I imagine its easy to replace the connector block in China. But the prospect of finding one here seemed so remote and time consuming that I just rebuilt the connector block with a pyro pen and screwdriver blade to push the plastic back into workable position. And then rebuilt the screw connector with new screws as the originals were melted. The Smithy again works good as new, which isn't saying much, really. (Another "cheap " tool where I got what I paid for, even though it was a good sum of money outlay.)
Anyway, back top the grinder/buffer. I broke off the wheel guards from the main casting and did some smoothing of the remaining cheap pot metal. I also made a wood mount so I can use the buffer in my bench vise at a comfortable level.
I did get some polishing done before my back knotted up too bad to continue. But, it was a pretty full day.
I'm going to have to work on the Camaro next. The temp gauge stopped indicating.
Here are the Carb tops with one starting to be polished and the other not. Maybe you can guess which was started?
This was only after the Scotchbite rub down and a little buffing on the wheel in the drill.
You can also see what general carb assembly condition was when I started.
Next is what the carb look like today. Still more polishing to be done.
Finally, my buffer project in fruition.
