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Aluminum Corrosion

3K views 9 replies 8 participants last post by  1948boat 
#1 ·
Help!

My bike lived outside at the beach before I bought her. Now she is living the life (just like the dogs in my house hmm) and she has the 3rd car garage all to hersel. (well she does share with an HD but she has the prime spot :cool:). I am still trying to get her detailed completely but the front forks have some corrosion on them and I have tried several products and places. The last place I went was the Marine store and bought a product that did not help.

Has anyone found a product to help with this that they would recommend?

Oh and I ended up trying Clorox clean-up on my white walls and it worked great. I tried the Simple Green first but it seemed like it was doing more damage to my nails then the grime on the tire.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
 
#3 ·
I don't recall seeing anything thay you can spray onto dull and pitted aluminum and wipe or hose off giving you "like new" results. Sanding and buffing is what lies ahead of you. The shinier you want it to get, the more finger nail damage you will suffer.

As Farmall mentioned 400 grit should do the heavy work unless there is pitting. Oh and funny thing about that silvery colored aluminum, when you sand, buff, and polish, it comes off black. Now look at your hands, see all the fine lines off your knuckles, and see the edges around and under your fingernails, now picture them filled with black soot. ENJOY!
 
#4 ·
The corrosion is coming from rock chips on the clear coat exposing the raw fork. If it's not bad you can spray wheel cleaner on it like you would on wire wheels for a car and that kills the corrosion. After that you have to pollish it and recoat it like farmall said.
 
#8 ·
There's nothing wrong with wearing some disposable gloves. I used to own a couple of Neons, and needless to say, got fed up having filthy cut up hands all the time pretty quickly. I ended purchasing a couple of pair of Mechanix gloves on sale rather than the disposable rubber ones. (I sweat too much in the rubber ones)



These are great for dirty work, and I could even pick up screws while wearing them.
 
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