I was wondering what ideas anyone may have to deal with rusty pipes. The 4 pipes that leave the engine block are rusty. I have used a wet dry sand paper to remove some of the rust (on other parts of the bike where there was only a little bit of rust it has worked very well before using mothers chrome cleaner to bring out the shine) but it is fairly deep. How thick are these pipes before I make a hole if I was to use a grinder to remove the rust? Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

I have a set of pipes beside that I will installon my bike for the same rust problem and the thin end measures 1/16 of an inch. That woud make them pretty thin for a grinder. Maybe a grinder with a sandpaper disk would work.

sand blasting is another option. But there again you have to be careful because sand can remove metal also.

Thanks for the information and advice

I have had success with my rusty down-pipes on my '81 750 Seca.
I had the pipes gritblasted down to the bare metal and then I spray painted them using a zinc rich paint (93% zinc).
Then after the zinc was dry I topcoat paint the pipes with high temp aluminium paint (1500 F).
That was May 12/05. toady they are still just like freshly painted.

BTW- I do both highway and 'spirited' riding.

Milton Mike

You may laugh, but I had to clean up some copper tubing about two weeks ago. It was a discharge pipe from an air compressor that was discoloured and crusty with burnt oil. I tried various degreasers and scouring pads, but no luck. Out of frustration, I poured some abrasive hand cleaner, the thick, gooey, soapy kind with pumice particles embedded in it, and lo and behold, it came up shiny as new. Now, this may not work on steel, or rust, but it is worth a shot, and in the worst case, you have a bottle of hand cleaner left over to use. The soap self-lubricates the process, so it's fairly easy work. Trounce is an excellent hand cleaner for both cleaning and grit content.

If you can't get all the rust off, buy some naval jelly, or rust convertor. It will neutralize the rust, and leaves a surface ready for painting.

Wash them first with an SOS pad. I thought my pipes were shot, but with some elbow grease, and a few SOS pads, the pipes now look pretty good (if not near mint).

Give it a whirl!