Topic: Help me make my bike shine, or We need a Wax FAQ

[narcoticrex]

Ive been reading quite a few posts about polishing and waxing, but to be honest, Im sorta confused.  Now, I have absolutely never, ever cared about how what I am driving looks - I am a function over form kinda guy.  I never even washed my bomber cars.  But now, I got my bike, and although she aint the hottest bike on the streets, shes the hottest bike to me and I want to make her look good!

Im having issues with paint though - the carbs stained the paint because of no overflow tubes.  Is my only option to strip all that paint away and just polish the metal underneath, or repaint it that silverish color? 

[sparty]

You will want to paint over the case.  Don't leave it bare.  As for polishing the tank and side covers, I use a glaze product form One Grand and then their carnuba wax.  Great stuff.  I do it all by hand, no machines.  It takes time, but looks great.

Sparty

[eurban]

If you want your aluminum engine covers to shine like chrome you will have to remove the factory clear coat (air craft stripper paint remover works well) and then spend some serious time with wet sanding and or abrasive wheels to remove imperfections and casting marks. You can then use either a buffing wheel setup with different compounds or some more elbow grease and aluminum polish.  Once you have them nice and shiny it is relatively easy to maintain them with polish and wax.  Keep pooling water off of shiny aluminum.  The shiny engine covers look nice in contrast with a clean painted engine case, cylinder and head.  It would be an astronomical amount of work to polish the engine itself but I have seen some strip the paint, and bead blast, leaving things unpainted.  Probably best done during a rebuild with the engine apart.  Keeping a rough finished and unpainted engine clean looking would be a bit of a maintenance chore.