Polished aluminum cases/covers

[TWILKIN]

I've seen pictures on various 650 sites of beautiful polished cases, points, advance and cam covers. Is it worth buying the stuff to convert a mildly oxidized set of original aluminum covers into jeweled beauties, or would it be better to turn this over to someone else who has done it before, knows how to do it and won't screw it up? I'd hate to spend a boat load of money, mess up the cases and then find someone who can polish and coat the cases for me for half the price. Any favorite sources of companies who polish cases and estimated prices for having it done versus doing it yourself?

[Polamnus]

I found a company auctioning the service for one engine cover on Ebay. I emailed them asking for a quote on both engine covers, point, ATU, and valve covers. I think they quoted me an estimate of about $125 + shipping to them. Too steep for my tastes at that point, but that's not to say it wouldn't be a worthwhile winter time investment. Unfortunately I don't have any contact info and the email exchange is long gone, but that should give you a starting figure.

I did do a very amateurish polish job when I assembled my bike, but that's quickly faded back to dull, and with the constant oil streams down my cases, I'm glad to have not paid the big money or put in big effort.

Best,
Pol

[mental]

Hey Twilkin,
Polishing is pretty easy to do........if you have the right supplies. The buffing wheels and compounds do most of the work. It is, however, very time consuming.

Caswell plating has a "motorcycle and small engine parts" kit that is designed to be used with a hand held drill. And it's pretty cheap, as in $39.00.

www.caswellplating.com/buffs/alpolkit.htm

Here's a really cool site called Finishing forums. Click on the "How To Polish in 7 million easy steps. (or less)" thread. He goes through some steps that may or may not be necessary for your application, but it's good info nonetheless.

finishingforums.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=1

Another thing that you can you can do to prepare your aluminum for polishing, is to wet sand it with progressivley finer grits of sandpaper. Start out in the 320 grit range and, if you take it all the way down to 1500 grit, you could darn near do the final polishing by hand.

For my final polish, I have found that 3M Marine Aluminum Restorer and Polish #09020, is about the best that I have found. I got mine at a marine supply house. It does not provide any protection, however, so a follow-up polish with something like Flitz will provide a wax-like sealer to help protect against oxidation. If you really want to get trick, you can seal your freshly polished surface with Zoop-seal, which is available from Caswell plating as well.

Mental

[TWILKIN]

Thanks for the suggestions, observations and websites. I planned to take the valve covers off and try them first, as a sort of test case, and if I could make them look good, try the other parts and pieces.