Help me with my addiction

Got a wild hair and pulled my "Yics" panels off and polished them up. Very happy with the results but as mentioned above it has become an addiction. I want to pull the left side cover off - the one that is penetrated by the shifter rod and has the oil breather line out the top. My question is will there be oil behind that cover? I assume there will be since the breather is right there??


Also, has anyone had any luck spraying their polished aluminum work with some clear laquer? Or is it best to just plan on a weekly light polishing


What are the chances I'll stop after that cover???

 

Yup there be oil behind the panel. I removed the shift lever and polished in place.

It is an addiction. I have not clear coated

 

It's much easier to remove the cover and polish it when it's off. It's hard to get to the crevises and do a good job when it's on the bike.
I polished mine with a buffing wheel in the drill press and they turned out like chrome! You don't need to clear coat them if you get them shiny as I did. Just polish them once in awhile with some Mothers and they stay looking better than new.

 

I use a coat of automotive wax like Mothers. Helps prolong the shine that we all worked so hard to get.

 

Your addiction is compulsive reminecent of many here but you seem to recognise your problem and I am here to help you .

first off you have to get rid of the bike and you can't sell it because you will have cash in your hand and who knows what other addictions you may develope with all that cash.

so I propose that you go COLD TURKEY and dump that monkey on your back brother. I can stop by in the morning and if its too hard to watch you can leave the key and title under the seat and push it to the curb and go back to bed. when you wake up you will be free of the menacing addiction forever.

it won't hurt I promise.

:twisted:

 

Yeah, it's not good at all. I keep running out to the garage just to take a peek.

I do have a bad case of PMS.... I am shooting that Groundhog next year

 

LOL

 

I'm looking at buying a kit to start shining mine up.Have any of you guys tried this or something like it?

http://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/alpolkit.htm

 

Yup that should work just fine. That one has everything you should need to get the job done.
I bought all my stuff at Sears in the tool dept. I use my drill press to polish parts off the bike and my hand drill for parts on the bike. You won't believe how the dull parts can be transformed into a chrome finish with that stuff.
When I got my buffing pad and polishing compounds, I experimented with an old piece of aluminum I found in the trash pile. It took about 5 minutes to turn it into a chrome finish I could see myelf in.
If your parts are tarnished or scraped up too bad, you will first need to sand them with 600-1000 grit wet sand paper to get them smooth enough, before you start to polish them. I just makes the job easier and will take less time to polish. If they still have the factory clear coat on, sanding them will need to be the first thing you do. If you need to clean the parts first, I boil the parts in lemon juice first which cleans them off pretty good.

 

+1 on the kit. looks like the stuff I am using - I bought mine in pieces but amounts to the same thing.

 

My wife bought me a Dremel bit set for X-mas that had some small polishing wheels and a very small block of red rouge.I did some testing on my left YICS cover and it turned out pretty good,I just needed to find something that will work on a larger scale.

 

The dremel tool works good for hard to reach places, but seems to give too many swirls on larger projects. I burned mine up from working on fabricated parts, so they don't last when used repeatedly for hard cutting/polishing pojects. Infact, Im throwing another one in the trash with a burned up motor.That make two in a year! I gotta find something that can take the abuse.

 

Look at shaft driven tools like this kind of tool.

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?FamilyID=5912

There are many brands. I have one for my woodcarving hobby but folks woh make dental appliances etc use similar device.

 

There ya go! By the looks of the price, it must be built pretty good. It looks like a good option. Thanks!!

 

I bought a $10 Ryobi kit from Home depot that has an arbor and three different size mini buffing wheels. I chunk my drill into my workmate and create a CBE (crude but effective) buffing stand.

HOWEVER; that being said--- depending on the part I do a lot of it by hand. There isn't a whole lot of polishing necessary to get from 2000 wet to the proper shine. What I DON'T want to do is to get the polished metal as shiny as chrome; it needs to be just a bit less shiny so it has that rich polished look. In many cases I find this easier to accomplish by hand.

There are areas on my Norton that need to be bright and clean but aren't SUPPOSED to be highly polished. For that I use Scotchbrite then stop.

 

if you decide not to take a cover off but are having a bad time getting the recess around the screws nice, i found you can take out one screw at a time
polish the recess and put the screw back and not get a leak
any scrapes you try to get out, use a block of wood behind the wet-dry
there won't be as much to buff back out
get some cheap cloth gloves, your fingers won't get tired trying to hold little corners of rags
if you try to buff up the screws, go easy, the plating's easy to buff right off
then they rust

 

I used 1500 grit and 2000 grit on mine and then I used a cordless drill and a powerball and mothers aluminum polish to shine but I am thinking of going back to original satin finish and using clear coat on it. it could save me a ton of time keeping it shiny.

time I could spend doing the mecanical work like valve adjusting , clutch plate replacing, new chain , New bearings for steering head and wheels. and a paint job.

I think thats what I 'll do as soon as the weather permits.

 

Geez.... Held my Yics covers up to the motor....set them back on the workbench.....Ordered shaft cover and alternator gaskets from Chacal....The insanity of it all....Has anyone ever polished their valve stems.....I need help

 

Almost there with the side cover

 

aww seca we almost got a face shot of u in the cover... darn