rapfohl wrote on 08/19/14 at 14:26:42:Dave, how do you go about doing your "polishing"?
I would like to do the same thing this winter, as my covers are looking a little sad and nasty.
I should do a write up.....but in a nutshell.
1) Take the parts off the engine.
2) Strip the clear coat off using a real paint stripper from an auto paint supply store. Something like Tal Strip or the Aircraft stripper. The stuff you get at Lowe's and Home Depot won't work.
3) Wet sand the parts to get rid of the corrosion or nicks and scrapes. You can start with 360 on the bad spots.....or even 240 if the pitting is bad. Don't sand the smooth parts with the rough paper as it will make scratches you have to sand out later. Then go to progressively finer grits. The paper wears out pretty quick so you will have to change the paper often - I use pieces about half the size of a dollar bill. If the parts are smooth start with 400 and work down to 600 grit. At this point you can start buffing if you have a good bench mounted buffing wheel - and it will take about 1 hour each case to do a really good job. If you are doing this by hand than you keep sanding with finer grits until you get down to 1,000 or more. Then you can start buffing the aluminum with rags and a metal polish. Meguires makes one that is a fast cut and it comes in a tube - then a fine grit that is in a little tub. Flitz, Simi-chrome and similar products work fine for the final polish.
Dave