Polishing aluminium

[tom_beverley]

Hell, it takes bloody ages lol

Basically I've got a T40 inlet [I'm still waiting for one too :mad:] which was painted red so I decided to strip this off to prep the manifold again and then spray silver to a better finish. After removing all the paint it was apparent that a lot of smoothing would be required to get a good finish [the casting is quite poor - probably normal]

I've now decided to faff on and have started to smooth off all the rough stuff with a dremel type tool and then wet and dry to finish which seems to work well.

I've done about 1/4 of the manifold to a lovely smooth and shiny finish last night [about 4 hours work] whilst I'm waiting to get my diff bearings fitted, but didn't expect it to take so long! I'll be getting my diff back today so polishing the inlet is way down my list of priorities now.

Anybody got any good tools/tips so I can hurry it up a little?

[craig green]

I'd atleast use a dremel with polishing tips tbh. Using a buffing mop is so much better than hand sanding/polishing.

Nothing like elbow grease & hard work though as you are finding out.

Ebay is good for dremel/polishing stuff. (fancy that!!)

[Lynsey]

Have you been using Autosol? I love that ****!

[craig green]

Autosol is abrasive though & not ideal for getting a good finish on soft metal like aluminium. It'll ruin a good mirrored finish.

[tom_beverley]

Whats Autosol? I haven't used anything but the dremel type thing and wet and dry [and half my finger ends]!

I'll have a scout on Ebay and in the local motorfactors later on :thumb:

[Nick]

Autosol FTW.

I've used it on my Alu Catch tank and it came up perfectly.

[Stuart]

to take off the casting marks you would be best to use an 80 grit flappy sandpaper disc to get the surface "smooth" then go into finer grades of flappy disc and then onto polishing bits.

[Matt2107]

Here tom this might help you out

http://www.ftooc.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=83481&highlight=polishing

[Dod]

WOW, they came up well didnt they?

[tom_beverley]

Grr, can't view the link at work Matt but cheers anyway, I'll have a look when I get home [after I go to motorfactors to pick up some flappy wheels :)]

[ck]

me and a friend used to polish the carbs for his aprillia rs 125. bascly turned the carb into the race version (very early with huge carb)

we used to go over with a rough sand/glass paper to take the initial roughness out, then to a finer paper then onto it with a dremel. ive allways used Autosol when using the dremel just make sure you put loads on keeping it moist as the autosol sorta drys out.

from badly dimpled finish it would come up as good as a mirror and perfectly flat/smooth :d

[Stuart]

ohhh performance loss tastic on the intake then :D mirror finish in the inlet is bad hmmmm K

[ck]

nope, it was a delorto carb. think it was 44mm, they actualy list 2 version of the same carb, the std one and the race version. the race version is mirror polished, hence why we done it lol

[ck]

just like this, the racing polished version lol. http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i95/ckallis500/R9787.jpg

[Lynsey]

Yeah huh.

I love the smell of Autosol, now my nostrils also have a mirror finish ;), oh wait, that wasn't the Autosol... :p

[Jack]

Autolsol ftw, I use it on my wheels and rear box (on the celica).

[DAN-F]

ohhh performance loss tastic on the intake then :D mirror finish in the inlet is bad hmmmm K
mirror finish will improve performance if done on a carb
you will lose perfomance if you polish the inlet wrong,

[DAN-F]

i polish inlets up, i use a rough paper to take the casting down to a smoothish finish then a little finer then a fine paper, say 500-6-- grit or more with autosol to get a mirror finish