Let's talk about aluminum finishes

[Ozzy]

You know the more I think about it. If they aren't to bad a couple passes threw the dishwasher when the wife isn't home followed by some light polishing might be all you need.

The dishwasher we had at out last place had a heat drying cycle that was as hot as the sun. When I first ran my valve covers through it, they came out a horrible flat grey and lightly covered in white powder where (I'm assuming) corrosion had already started.

I still used the dishwasher quite a bit to clean parts, but was very leery of using aluminium and if I did put aluminium in there, I'd pull the parts before the drying cycle and dry the parts myself.

I have seen the same corrosion on aluminum caused by cleaning with oven cleaner (normally sodium hydroxide, ie. caustic soda) and not fully nuetralized, but have not seen the same happen if cleaned in a phosphoric solution.