Hello all. I recently read about a trick here on HDForums and I tried it. I have some pics and I'll show you what I did and explain.

I was looking at the following pic of my bike and I noticed a cloudy area on my tail pipe. I've circled it in the pic.



When I tried to polish it or clean it off, it was hard and would not come off. Also when I ran my fingers over it, it felt raised as if it there was something that had melted or adhered to the surface. Someone mentioned using a piece of copper to mechanically remove deposits on chrome as the copper is softer than the chrome and would not damage it.

My boy is a machinist and brought me home a small square of pure solid copper.



This is a close up of the blemish. I took this pic after I thoroughly cleaned it



I gently ran the copper scrap over the pipe and I could feel a slight bit of resistance as it slid over the surface of the chrome. As I gently moved it back and forth, the resistance would disappear and I'd move to a new spot. I was checking for damage as I was cleaning it and it did not appear to be damaging the chrome surface. After I finished, I polished it and this was the result.




At a glance it looks way better but when I look carefully, I see very very tiny scratches that run horizontally along the same path that the copper ran. Maybe I should have cleaned up the copper bar more? Maybe I pressed too hard?

 

Looks good from 7,000' ASL here in Arizona and if you never told us about it, we wouldn't have known it was there. Ride it and enjoy it. If you nit-pick every blemish on your bike it's going to take away from the enjoyment of owning a bike. Rock on brother.

 

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what we don't know won't hurt us!! Thanks for the tip!

 

Would have never seen it unless you pointed out. You see it because you know it's there and that's the first place your eye goes. It drove me crazy when I had a chip in my paint, finally had it painted, came out like new. If it drives you crazy, you could always re chrome it or replace it..

 

Looks a lot better than it did.

Ride it and enjoy. Or if it bothers you that much, try some chrome polish (but I doubt it will make much difference), and as a last resort replace it.


AS a side note, the couple of times I've had something melted on my pipes I rode the bike until it got hot then wiped the stuff off with paper towels. If heat made it stick to the pipe, heat will help take it off.

 

I think it looks great! Nice job! PS something crawled up on your seat and died.

 

I can live with it. Slowly over time, I have a list of little imperfections and such.

I just wanted to let the folks here know about my experience in case the information helps them.

 

looks good thanks for the info

 

I would have to trade it in for a new bike.