polishing my 90 valve covers

[advancedtooling]

Impressive work!

 

[JeffP1167]

was making some good progress today but after about 30 minutes of hard polishing my makita grinder went up in smoke! Might have to get me a industrial buffer.

Anyways this is after just using 120grit and emery, should have went to 220 but was lazy.







forgot to take pictures after I sanded it. But you get the picture, these are in crappy condition but they will shine up too.

 

[010752]

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.

Be really carefull with their cleaner, it contains hyfroflouric acid.
It does a great job on aluminum. easily makes it look brand new.
It can have a delayed action of a couple days that can burn you deeply, from the inside out, make your fingernails fall off etc.
A lot of the older a/c coil cleaners contained it.
That cleaner also contains sulphuric, but most know about it.

http://blog.chembark.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/HF-Burn.jpg

 

[JeffP1167]

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 have never used the stuff, basically anything you see being done here is with nothing more then 120 and 220 grits sand paper and a 3 step buffing method.

The most precautions you need are a filtering mask, face shield, thick gloves (I use heavy welding gloves)

I can't stress enough to use at a minimum these 3 safety things as for one you will get covered in black stuff and I can't imagine you would want to risk your eyesight, 2 at speeds a buffer can run the buffing pad can generate a great deal of heat and can literally burn your skin right off, 3 a filtering mask is nice for both sanding and buffing processes, 4 also be forewarned that the buffing action can result in parts kick back and can injure you severely.

If wanted I will post pictures of exactly what I use to get the parts this nice, don't over think the sanding process. The emery compound can easily removed 220 grit sanding marks and any pictures are only step one of the polishing process. Basically by stopping at 220 grit the emery will leave a finish of probably around say 1000 grit and provides an excellent reflection and beautiful shine.

here is my trusty makita grinder/buffer dying. I think this picture is enough to convince you why good gloves are imperative for your protection !!!!!!!!!!

 

[JeffP1167]

Well, I bought a new dewalt grinder today and decided to polish more. I didn't remove the adjusters on whatever these are but took me about a hour to sand both 120 grit only and about half hour to do this much polishing on this arm.

They aren't finished yet and will take about another 30 minutes to finish the one I started to polish.

 

[JeffP1167]

Still needs a lot of work but you can see that they will look pretty dam nice when finished.

My girlfriend was joking the other day while at denny's and said my suspension is nicer then there forks and knives and spoons hahaha

 

[JeffP1167]

this is the rear knuckle where the bearing holder mates to the knuckle. I did no sanding here but even it shined right up. just did this small area to show you for a great shine not much sanding is necessary.

 

[JeffP1167]

after 45 minutes of sanding and about 30 minutes of polishing I have the upper hand on this spindle or upright whatever you call it. Still needs more polishing but it shined right up as well. I'm going to need smaller polishing wheels to get into the tighter areas.

I have some extra sanding to do on it but for now I am moving onto another part.

starting





after removing casting lines, logo's and sanded to 120 grit







started polishing

 

[JeffP1167]

I still need to do the other side of the lower control arm but it has a very nice shine to everything so far. After all parts are done then I will go over everything that isn't done well enough and then hit everything with tripoli and the white rouge and they should have an even better shine.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

nice work

 

[JeffP1167]

Yesterday got 3 dogbones all sanded, 1 dogbone polished and the other strut arm polished. I also removed all casting logo's and casting ribs on my other upper and lower a-arms.

Tomorrow will finish polishing my other dogbones and sand down and polish my other upper and lower a-arms.

These parts were done by removing the cast lines with my grinder and 120grit and polish compound.

Here is one polished dogbone and the strut arm.







strut arm

 

[JeffP1167]

nice work

Thanks, there are some scratches left that I will take care of later.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

You forgot to smile for the camera


however, that does beg the question.... how in the world did you manage to get yourself level with the ground when you took that picture? while you do awesome work on polishing, I think your talent at levitating would be quite the money-maker

 

[JeffP1167]

You forgot to smile for the camera


however, that does beg the question.... how in the world did you manage to get yourself level with the ground when you took that picture? while you do awesome work on polishing, I think your talent at levitating would be quite the money-maker

I will also be doing a 1990 vette TPI system (a spare unit I have) along with all aluminum parts that are found on the engine.

I might just sell this stuff because it might be a major PITA to keep clean. I'm going to daily drive my 82 so polished stuff might not be the best stuff for it. But it sure would look nice on it.

Some scrapes won't be removed because to get them out would take a lot of work and make me remove quite a bit of aluminum. As long as it shines that is all I care about.

 

[JeffP1167]

You can see the casting ribs in these pictures, I am trying to remove all of them on the suspension.

before





after




strut rod on left is the the one I just polished. I never removed these casting lines on the other one before polishing but will re-do it since it looks a lot better with it removed.

before



after

 

[JeffP1167]

Took me about a hour and a half to grind and then sand this lower a-arm down to 120grit and about 45 minutes to do the remaining 3 dogbones.







I will finish the spring pocket area after I have the ball joints removed.



Dogbones grinded and sanded to 120 grit, have a bit more sanding left on them



After about 30 minutes of polishing, still need more polishing but they are shining up fine.

 

[JeffP1167]

Spent about 15 minutes on these 3 dogbone ends and ran out of polishing compound. The center parts of them are easy to do, I should be able to finish them with about 30 minutes more of work.

 

[69427]

Looks sweet!

You've got more damn patience than I have. :thumbs:

 

[JeffP1167]

Looks sweet!

You've got more damn patience than I have. :thumbs:

It's easy! .... But I will probably never do another set hahaha .... Doubt these will ever go on my 82, probably be way too much work to keep them nice on the car.

 

[JeffP1167]

just thought i would show you my hi-tech polishing equipment.

my orbital sander



120 sanding discs



my polisher and grinder



old welding helmet



welding gloves



Not really hard work to get the C4 suspension to shine up