Gotta love a great ***!

 

Ok, trip to the parts store @ lunch & the plan is simple:

Gonna leave the forks on the bike, remove fender & brake caliper, remove my chrome axle nut covers, cover the wheel, and tape up everything I don't want affected such as the dust cap.

Then I'm going to use Acetone to remove the clear coat...worked well by accident being careful, so should work easy if I'm actually trying to remove it with some elbow grease. I have a quart of it, so don't have to use it sparingly this time. They had every kind of paint stripper imaginable, but the Acetone is clean, and leaves no residue so I'm going with it.

Then I'm going to see what the finish looks like....I don't think I'm going to go all the way with a perfect mirror finish. I'm thinking a medium shine....SO, I'm gonna take some 400 & 600 to it wet and see what happens. If I like, I am going to polish with some Mother's aluminum & mag polish. If it's not enough, I also bought some 1000 and will wet sand with that, then polish again. No power tools...all elbow grease.

Gonna start on this after work today, but have a lot of other chit going on this weekend so I don't know if I'll get it done or not. I'm planning on riding it this weekend too, so I may be riding without a front fender and project half finished when I need a break in the action.

Whenever I do get it to the point I am happy with it, I'll put everything back on and take pics & post on here....good or bad.

 

I just polished my front forks. I used 600 grit to sand off the clear coat. a coarser grit would have worked better but it got the job done. i used water with a drop of soap in it to prevent the sandpaper from loading up.
next step was 1000 then 1500 grit. polish with standard aluminum polish.
I would recommend taping off the dust caps or knocking them loose to prevent damage to the chrome. take the front wheel off to get better access. this takes a while.
I actually only got one finished and rode without a fender. avoid water. haha

 

Good luck on the project, I'll be lookin for pics.

 

Obviously we're past this point in the advice, but all I did was make sure the Goo-Gone sat on the adhesive for quite some time, heated it up really well with a heat gun, picked the big parts off with my fingers and scrubbed off the rest with soft paper towels. Plastic razor blades also work wonders as I've used them on cars and left no scratches.

 

When you get to the polishing part,buy a bag of OOOO steelwool and use it to apply the polish. I use Mother's alum. polish.

 

Push real hard with your fingers and roll then hit it with a clay bar it will come off like butter

 

i used brake parts cleaner on my crhome to get left over adhesive off not sure if its good for the paint but it works like a charm on chrome

 

Ok, well I got it done & it went better than expected! Here's the step by step:

I took pics....attached @ bottom.

So here's what I ended up doing....I removed the fender, then taped off the dust caps, axle nut covers(chrome), and decided to try it with the brake caliper on, so I taped it all off real well also.

As originally planned, I used the acetone to take off the clear coat. I soaked the fork with it on a rag first, then used a 3M auto scuff pad to scrub it off. This looks like a scotch brite pad, only it's browish red. This process worked really well.

After the clear was removed, I continued scrubbing the fork with Acetone and the 3M pad. Once done with this step, I got another piece of the 3M scuff pad, and used water this time, and continued to buff and scour the fork for a good while to make the finish much smoother and consistent. Then I cleaned off the fork with a clean rag using Acetone to remove all the aluminum, then a rag with water.

After I got this point on the first fork, I realized that the 3M pad was making it really smooth. I decided to try some 1000 grit wet sanding on it, and it made it rougher than the 3M scuff pad had gotten it already, so I abandoned the sand paper all together & went back to using the scuff pad.

Cleaned it all up again, then got out the mother's mag & aluminum polish and began polishing with a sponge. Wiped it down, then did it again.

Once this process was complete, I got out the Meguiar's Caranuba + wax and began the final step of polishing. The wax took more aluminum off as well, and got it to a real nice shine and will also protect it. Did this twice.

Once I got the right side done, went to the left side. Left side was more difficult because I decided to do all this with the brake caliper on. I was able to work around it, so it wasn't a big deal. It would have made it easier if removed, but the amount to time to remove and re-install would take longer than taping off, and I'm glad I did it the way I did. No regrets there.

Re-installed the fender using blue thread lock on the bolts. Waxed fender.

Took me 3 hours Friday night on the right side, and 3 hours Saturday afternoon on the left side....6 hours total for the project.

I am VERY happy with the results, and what looked like a big mistake in the beginning turned out to be a good project that made my bike look much better.

In summary, all I really need was the following:

Acetone
1-3M auto scuff pad (cut into 4 smaller pieces)
Mother's mag & aluminum polish
Meguiar's caranuba+ wax
A bunch of rags
water

For those considering doing this, I highly recommend it. Don't be affraid and take your time....it's worth it in the end. I could take it to an even higher shine with a power ball or buffer, but the finish I achieved is perfect for what I was wanting.

Bike looks good, I am happy!