polishing my 90 valve covers

JeffP1167

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Joined
Dec 21, 2009
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Location
Yucaipa, CA.
started this today, I am not sure how magnesium will react exposed but they can be made to look like chrome.

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looks good!!! I actually have two sets of valve covers , I think mine are aluminum , one is always polished and stored and then I swap them every two years and then over the next 2 years I polish up the set I removed and store them and start the process all over again.
 
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These ones were beat up pretty bad, I still have more polishing and then need to paint the recessed areas again. But they look a lot better then painted.

Also starting to do a spare suspension I have from another 90 vette.
 
Have you evever heard of this stuff:

http://www.sharkhide.com/

A buddy of mine used it on his motorcycle a couple of years ago on polished aluminum. It still looks good. However, it's not an engine part. It would suck to do that all over again.
 
I started this a-arm today, I never sand past 220 grit but still get a nice shine. This is just after hitting them with 220 and emery. Last 2 polishing steps will get them like chrome or close too it.

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very nice lots ofelbow grease!

should keep them easy to clean for a long time.
 
These are all my other suspension parts. I just need to find a dana36 differential and batwing now. I got all my spare suspension stuff from a 500.00 90 parts vette I bought and from it I sold the dana44 for 650.00 so basically got tall this for free. So I will polish all this and have new bushings installed so it is all ready for my 82 vette. I will just use the 90 vettes suspension that I just cut up for mocking up the suspension swap on my 82 so none of this gets damaged.

I also have J55 calipers and rear calipers that will also be polished.

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I played for about 20 minutes on this lower A-arm. You will never get aluminum perfect, sometimes as you sand it opens more imperfections in the casting. If you can just get them to shine be blessed. I doubt they will stay this nice for long on a street driven car anyways.

I stop at 220 grit, but probably best to at least go to 320 or 400, but anything more then that is overkill.

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very nice lots ofelbow grease!

should keep them easy to clean for a long time.

Nah, only took about 20 minutes

How do you get that done in 20 minutes?

The rubber on that A-arm looks toasted!

Learn faster ways as I go. Yes the a-arm bushings are shot and will be replaced after they are polished. I'm not overly worried about show perfection shine. I just want them to shine is all I suppose if I went to 1000 grit like others I could get them a lot better but there is a downside to going that far in grit and that is the sanding marks become so fine polishing compound gets trapped in it and makes the surface cloudy. 400 grit is the maximum I will go.
 
Oh and BTW ... ALWAYS wear good strong gloves! I use leather welding gloves and a full face mask, at speed a grinder runs with a buffing wheel one slip and you WILL be missing skin and it is VERY painful. The gloves will also protect your hands from the heat generated on the aluminum it can sometime get hot enough to burn you. Also wear you worst clothes as they will be black after you are done.

I am slow doing this so don't expect a lot of progress, just wanted you to see that polishing is easier then it looks and you don't need anything more the 400grit sanding. Let your buffing wheel and emery compound do the hard work.

All I use is my makita grinder with grinding disk to remove casting marks and casting joints, then a 5" orbital sander with 220 discs, then put a buffing pad on my makita grinder and it will easily remove 220 grit sand marks.
 
Spent another hour on this lower a-arm figure will take me around 3 hours to get each lower shined up.

Again 220 and emery and thats it.

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This area I didn't even bother to sand, it is hidden so it doesn't matter.

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but here is what it looked like before

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a small area on one of my dog bones. Used 120 and emery for this, took about 5 minutes.

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These are by far the hardest parts to do, getting between the ribs will take a lot of work but they are shining up too.

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