Triumphrat

IamNeighbordave · 02-11-2006

A fellow Triumph rider here in UP-State NY removed the paint and polished many of the aluminum parts on his Legend and it looks hot.

My question is I have never done this and would like to know how.

What do you have to tell me about Polishing the Aluminum on my bike. :brk:

dazco · 02-11-2006

Ahhh.....one of my fav subjects. Love to polish aluminum ! It's actually very easy as far as getting it right, but it can require a good bit of elbow grease depending on what you use to do the polishing after the sanding, and the sanding will require elbow grease no matter what. the other big factor in how much work it takes is the shape of the part itself. Obviously a flat surface is easiest and a surface with nooks and crannies can be a 100 times more work. if the surface is free from tooling marks and generally pretty smooth it will be much quicker because the first thing you have to do is get it smooth as a mirror with sandpaper. Any scratches, and i mean ANY no matter how slight, will show up as soon as you're done sanding and begin poilshing. So sanding as smooth as possible is important. And that means gradually upping the grade of sandpaper.

start with about #400 wet and dry paper using water as a lube always keeping the paper wet and cleaning the metal sludge the water and metal particles create from the paper and metal at regular intervals, maybe ever minute or so. You may need a courser grit than 400 to begin id the metal is very rough, but 400 will generally be fine. You can get wet an dry in the grades you'll need at some hardware stores, but if you can find the finest grades you'll need there you can get it at auto paint suppliy stores.

After you've taken it down as smooth as possible with 400, move on to 6 or 800. Then about 1200, then finally 2000 which is so fine you can barely tell it's sandpaper. Once it's as smooth as possible take some polish, simichrome is the best for this IMO, and beging rubbing the metal and it'll immediatly start shining up like chrome. Stop after a few seconds or a minute and inspect to see if any scratches are there that the polish cannot remove. If so, you'll have to go back to paper and use whatever grade you need to get it out, then gradually back down from there again with the various grades till you get to 2000 again.

Anyway, once you see there are no scratches when polishing you can polish away either by hand with a rag and simichrome or with a cloth wheel on a bench grinder or as i use, a dremel with a cloth wheel. Once it's as nice as you can get it, polish it again this time using mother's mag and aluminum polish. This is a much finer polish that will remove the ultr fine scratching the semichrome left. Once thats done, you're done ! However, every time you wipe it down when you clean the bike the cloth will leave those ultra fine scratches again and you'll need to use the mothers again to get that out. either use mothers every time you clean your bike's polished aluminum, or you can spray a clear coat over it. Thats an area you'll have to ask others about because i never did that. It's easy enough to just use mothers on it when cleaning the bike, but a clear coat may be the better option id you have a lot of polish alum parts, especially ones with lots of nooks and crannies.

You will find done well it will looks as nice as chrome, and even richer in a way. Good luck.

Thrux-ton-up · 02-16-2006

Daz gives a great description on the polishing process. I polished the aluminum parts on my thrux in the same manner with excellent results. I used "Dads" paint stripper (Ace is the place) to remove the factory clear coating. The only place it proved to be a little difficult was the cam cover - and I think that is because higher temps are generated there and acted to "bake" the clear coat on better. I actually polished the side covers while still on the bike, tedious but not too big a chore. I used an electric drill with cotton buffing pads from Home Depot for the final polish. I have 15,000 miles on the parts now and they just need touched up every 6 months or so to keep them pristine, no clear coat on any of my polish work.

Thrux-ton-up

flatspins · 02-16-2006

Polish who me ? only the swing arm triple clamps and the clip-ons and levers. Ots of elbow grease and a bit of semi-chrome polish.

B02S4 · 02-22-2006

If you are upstate NY, your polished parts will probably do better with clearcoat. Road salt & uncoated aluminum isn't a good combo...the salt will corrode & dull the surface. The alternative is lot's of frequent elbow grease in the winter months, assuming you ride then. Got to watch melting snow dripping from your cage, too, if you park the bike next to the cage. That said, polished aluminum is great stuff.

dardoonk · 02-23-2006

I decided that polishing an entire carb was waaayyyy too much work, but here are my carb bowls.

flatspins · 02-24-2006

That looks awesome....you are the master :-D

ssjones · 03-16-2006

Polished my forks this winter. I didn't sand the shrouds, only hit them on the bench polisher. After this picture, I took them off and repolished, much better this time around.

GrandPaulZ · 03-17-2006

You have plenty of excellent info to do it yourself.

If you choose to farm it out, shoot me an e-mail and I'll price whatever you want polished to near mirror finish.