Cleaning up exterior surface of SU's?

[karls59tr]

What's the best method/ product for restoring the surface of the SU's? Is there a product for soft metal cleaning? I've heard that a brass wire brush might work?

 

[tdskip]

Metal polish once they are clean works, lot of work if done manually however. They can be glass bed blasted for a nice look as well.

 

[martx-5]

Depends on the look that you want. I cleaned all of my aluminum parts by first degreasing with mineral spirits and then cleaning with Brillo pads with the soap in them. That gets them nice and clean, and I left it at that. If you want them shinier, then you'll have to use an aluminum/mag polish and a lot of rubbing.


Below is the aluminum cleaned using the Brillo method...

Edit: Glass beading is great for cleaning as it gets into all the nooks and crannies, but the finish that it leaves, although very nice on aluminum, is a magnet for finger prints and smudges. If you do glass bead, give it the Brillo treatment afterwards.

 

[This14u]

Anyone use walnut shell blasting for this application?

 

[tdskip]

Nice engine bay Art

 

[karls59tr]

Well the mineral spirits and Brillo pad treatment looks fine to me. Think I'll go that route. Thx for th input.

 

[TomMull]

I got a siphon blaster from Sears and stuck the siphon tube into a box of baking soda from the grocery store. Works great. Here's Eastwood's version: Soda Blaster
Tom

 

[PeterK]

Anyone use walnut shell blasting for this application?

I used walnut shells on the inside and working parts. Outside I used glass bead at low pressure.

 

[3798j]

Not SU's, but below photos show 3M 1500grit followed by 2000grit, then Simichrome polish.