Shiny fork, or Fun With Mother's...

[Steve81GL1100]

While waiting for my caliper and master cylinder rebuild kits to arrive, I decided the forks need attention. Using a combination of manual elbow grease and the marvels of modern machinery, here's before-and-after pics:



And close-ups:





The left side took probably a total of an hour. The method I used was to start with a red ScotchLok pad in the 1/4" die grinder at moderate speed to grind through the old remains of clear-coat and corrosion. Follow that with manual rubbing around the circumference with a red ScotchBrite pad, followed by wet-sanding with 400, 600, and 1,000 wet-or-dry. After a good rinse, I chucked up the buffing pad from a 3M headlight restoration kit (the pad has a waffle surface), smeared a generous coating of Mother's Mag Polish on the fork, and went at it. After a few minutes I buffed off the remains with a microfiber towel and here's where it sits. It's not "show-chrome" perfect, but then neither is any of the rest of the bike. I'm pretty happy with the hand-rubbed nature of the shine.
Now on to the other side...
Steve

[salukispeed]

Very nice looking. I have a whole bike that need the same thing.

[ehadams]

Looks good. That is the same process I used on my wife's GL.

[Steve81GL1100]

All done.....



Front caliper kits just arrived, so on to bigger things...

Steve

[Recycled Roadkill]

Great results. I likely spent the same amount of time media blasting mine on the '77 and painting. Yours look much better.

[Casper]

Nice Work, the trouble with polishing is all the rest of the aluminum bits now look bad so you have to do the belt covers, which leads to the valve covers, which leads to the intake runners, etc etc etc.... Then by the time your all done, the forks need to be polished again.

[Steve81GL1100]

Casper,
The forks were the last pieces that were untouched. I did the valve covers, cam belt covers, intake runners, etc while I had the heads and carb rack off for their respective rebuilds. You're right, though, they look like they could use a touch-up...

[duke182]

Looks good.

[gregforesi]

I was peering through the posts to see if SunnBobb had commented. Guess not.

It's more expensive, but way less labor intensive, to pick up a decent polishing station. 1/2 HP with proper extended shafts works quite well. It doesn't matter how you do it though, polishing aluminum is filthy work. The end result is always worth it no matter what method you use.

[El_Taco]

I know how polishing aluminum can snowball, and I started out doing all of it by hand. I did the legs, then the caliper hangers, then the calipers themselves. A polished wheel really sets it off.

It's amazing how many bugs find all that stuff.

[77Wing]

Great job!

[mcgovern61]

Nice work!

[ericheath]

Agree, looks great. Problem is, it needs it again in a year. I maybe need to keep a coat of wax on mine after buffing. I am really disappointed after so much work to get them shiny.

[Steve81GL1100]

Agree, looks great. Problem is, it needs it again in a year. I maybe need to keep a coat of wax on mine after buffing. I am really disappointed after so much work to get them shiny.

Agreed. It's pretty much like painting a picket fence -- it looks all pretty but you're buying into perpetual maintenance. I've tried that Wizard's polish and protectant which is supposed to prevent tarnishing for "up to a year"... Operative phrase being "UP TO", since it didn't protect anything for more than a few weeks.....
Oh, well........ I guess it's all part of the Zen of maintaining these things
Steve