Cleaning lower forks and engine casing

[archno1]

Hi

Please could anyone advise me on the best way to clean these and what are the best products to use?

Thanks a lot

[seth]

black powder coating on the engine casings and a rub down and harmmerite smoothrite paint black or silver on the fork legs

[archno1]

Thanks Seth. I guess the powder coating would need to be done by a professional and wouldn't be cheap?

[froudy]

Powder coating the cases is about £10 each and well worth it..Seth got mine sorted for me

The fork lowers I painted myself. They were as bad as yours.
I used Nitromors paint stripper to remove what was left of the lacquer and paint. Then steel wool to get the surface smooth. A few coats of etch primer and then 4 coats of silver paint from a rattle can. They came up like new.

Before..


Primed..


Finished..


If you have the forks powder coated they will have to be stripped completely..That's why I opted to paint them.

[coldhands]

If you have the time ,then you could do what I did ,rub off the lacquer with a fine wet an dry(use plenty of water) and then polish up with the good old solvo auotosol,it takes a fair bit of work  ,but you can end up with quite a good result 
The only drawback doing it this way is that you have to polish now and again   ;)Which is ok if you enjoy cleaning your bike.
If you use your bike a lot I would say seths method would be better much more hard wearing and less maintenace.
Have just seen froudys forks and they look great so there's another option!!

[seth]

Thanks Seth. I guess the powder coating would need to be done by a professional and wouldn't be cheap?

as froudy says £10 a casing from my local guy he sent me his casings cost him £20+ postage
you'll also need 2 gaskets for when refitting.

if you want to send then happy to do same for you.
but if you have a local good quality powdercoater even better .

[lawrie]

I had some quite bad as well, much too corroded to polish etc. so I blasted them, heavily primed, rubbed down, then 2-pack matt-silver, don't look too bad methinks!

[Del]

I have the advantage of being able to spray all my parts

[seth]

nice job del 

[Podfather]

If you are painting them black do you do them gloss or satin finish?

[froudy]

I had some quite bad as well, much too corroded to polish etc. so I blasted them, heavily primed, rubbed down, then 2-pack matt-silver, don't look too bad methinks!

@lawrie

Sure it's been mentioned on here before, but please remember to fit your two fork spindle pinch bolts

[Mick_J]

That's a job I need to do sometime this year, although they don't look as bad as any of the ones shown here.  I will have to look into what's the best solution for me.

[Bigger Birdie]

Great to see what can be done with a bit of paint. I've been wondering what to do with Bertha's scabby forks for a while now, and I think the solution has been found.

[lawrie]

I had some quite bad as well, much too corroded to polish etc. so I blasted them, heavily primed, rubbed down, then 2-pack matt-silver, don't look too bad methinks!

@lawrie

Sure it's been mentioned on here before, but please remember to fit your two fork spindle pinch bolts

Ha ha, well spotted that man, BUT, if you look closely, you'll see there's no engine or brake-lines fitted either,
all was temporarily in place simply to have a rolling chassis.

[archno1]

Thanks for all the advice fella's, much appreciated.