Bought my Sportster used. Overall it's in great shape. However, upon closer look, I see tiny little specks of rust on some of the parts (upper part of forks, rear shocks, some of the screws, the exhaust clamps and wire spokes). Also when I took the air cleaner cover off, it was rusting inside. The screws with a little rust I was going to replace. And maybe the air cleaner cover, I could sand the inside and paint it.

How can I remove the tiny little specks of rust and keep them off?

 

Very fine steel wool (0000) will take care of light rust on all the steel/chrome/aluminum parts without causing too much trouble.

The spokes are going to be a pain in the butt, and will slowly come clean using the steel wool with a lot of elbow grease. The exhaust clamps, well, mine are rusty and I never really cared too much. I don't see them under the heat shields.

 

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Thanks Scuba. Are there any products out there that you use to protect the steel/chrome/aluminum parts?

 

+1 on the steel wool. Wiping the steel down with WD-40 would help protect it but mainly just keep it dry and wipe it down asap when it gets wet.

 

Never Dull will polish and protect will also remove very minor imperfections on chrome. Get it anywhere, marts, grocery, hardware look in the kitchen cleaning supplies or automotive. Will probably take the clearcoat finish off of protected aluminum though so be careful with that.

 

My chrome polish is something called "MAAS". It's essentially a chrome/stainless steel/silver polish from, I think, Crate and Barrel. I'm not really sure because I have never actually bought it, only received it as a gift. I assume any chrome polish would work well, though.

I only clean my bike once a month, if that. It's hard when it rains when I ride every other day and I'm busy. I ride more than I wash.

 

Unfortunately I watched this bike on the sale lot get rained on over and over for over a month before I had time to actually look at it. It's been garaged kept since I have owned it. I did wipe it down immediately after riding through a couple of afternoon storms.

I'll probably go to Autozone and see what types of products they have. And to grab some steel wool.

 

 

As a kid one of my chores was polishing my dad's big rig. Chrome and aluminum like you wouldn't believe. The best polish I ever used is "Autosol". I use it on my bike and it is incredible.