Cleaning Exhaust

What do you mean by staining? If it is heat discolouration then you can sometimes polish it out.

 

To remove the brown staining an acidic cleaner such as Harpic is effective, though keep it off yourself as it has Hydrochloric Acid in it. Try it on a hidden area first, and wash off well when finished. If you want a really good shine, you can follow this with Autosol and lots of elbow grease, or pull the headers off and go at them on cotton polishing mops on a grinder.

 

To restore my 916 exhaust, I took it off the bike and used a brush on a driller. Then Autosol (that stuff is magic!) and elbow grease (shitloads of that) to polish the hell out of it. And then back on the bike.













1 year later, it has acquired a bronze-ish hue which almost perfectly match the frame.

 

I have just started using a can of Optiglanz I've had in the garage for years,unopened.
Amazing stuff.Bought it to use on a CB1000R(shocking header pipes on that bike) but never got round to it.
Other than that 1200 grit Emery cloth soaked in water followed by Autosol.

 

As suggested by @Edge_of_Town, spray on Harpic. Wipe off 5 mins later.

 

1200 wet and dry and loads of Autosol, the dogs bollox that stuff.

 

Harpic finished off with Autosol

 

Autosol applied using a dremmel significantly reduces the elbow grease whilst increasing the shine.

 

The harpic gets the colouring off, but the pipes won't stay that way for very long .

 

Bit of inspiration for you my monster that I hand polished with varying grades of wet and dry then autosol vs my brothers diavel which had the harpic treatment.

 

May be harpic (which I never tried) is a good first step on stained/corroded pipes, and allows subsequent polishing steps to be a little less tedious?

 

Get some polishing mops and compound from here.
www.thepolishingshop.co.uk

 

Indeed, clean isn’t the same thing as polished, but it’s a good first step.

 

i've used those before, all good stuff from them
i had a look into using harpic for mine last year but saw some horror stories where either people didnt rinse it off correctly which caused problems, or as mentioned above the shine didnt last as long, so i didnt use it but equally cant vouch for it
i went with a fine flap wheel on the drill, then polishing compound and finished off with autosol. there was plenty of elbow grease involved but once done it's easy to keep on top of

 

Nylon scourers are also useful. Whatever you do, don't use 'normal' i.e. steel wire brushes. They deposit iron into the stainless surface and you'll end up with surface rust (hands up - I used my mum's Brillo pads to clean stainless exhausts as a teenager...)

 

polishing wheels, took about an hour after taking pipes off, once done, takes five mins with autosol to maintain

 

How was it getting the pipes off?
Can you recommend these polishing wheels?Have never tried any in the past but looking at yours it may be something to try over winter.
Thanks