Cleaning My Polished Bits

[calum17]

Hi. My ZZR600 has polished rims and swinging arm and they are shiny but not perfectly clean. i've gone over them with soapy water a cloth and sponge and it has taken off dirt but, to no surprise, marks are still there. are there any cheap and effective ways to clean them properly. someone mentioned auto-sol to me, is this a good or bad idea to use it?
thanks all

[kitty kat]

Bad idea, it is an abrasive, use something like Autoglym, that is just a polish, no abrasive action. Autosol will leave very fine scratches
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[calum17]

thanks. very glad i asked now
where can i find autoglym - is it cheap (most important of course because i cant afford to spend lots to keep them shiny on a regular basis, which is what i want to do)

[Whosthedaddy]

£5 from halfords
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Current : MSX 125 Past : CBR 900RR Monkeybike : c50 LAC : ZXR750 H2 : FZR600 : ZX7R P3 : YW100 : TRX850: Trophy 900 T309 : GSXR 600 L0: Monkeybike : XJ6S Whosthedaddy

[calum17]

I'll start saving ....
nah,, I'm sure I can spare £5 to keep it shiny shiny !
any ideas how many times I could do the rims and the swinging arm with one tub? (if it's once then i'll buy a few to save going back all the time)

[Whosthedaddy]

[calum17]

ok thanks.
it will be first on my list of things to get once I have my license (next few weeks hopefully)

[kitty kat]

my autoglym came in a bottle like a shampoo bottle, about £8 from Tesco for a large bottle, it will last you about a year though
____________________
Enjoy everyday, tell those you love everyday you love them
Life is too short to fall out with people

[calum17]

just looked on the tesco website, nothing on there except hood cleaning kits and valeting kits
https://direct.tesco.com/search/default.aspx?search=autoglym&confirm.x=0&confirm.y=0

perhaps they dont sell just the bottle anymore?

[Ichy]

If the part s lacquered then there's little hope of getting it perfect once the lacquer becomes damaged, water gets in and starts corroding the alloy.

I do a lot of alloy polishing on my own bikes and one bit of advice I was given, by a Swedish guy FWIW, was to wipe pure ethanol over the polished part. It creates a small amount of oxidisation which protects the part from the elements without any major affect to the finish.

[ramble on]
Biggest problem was getting the damn stuff, you can't buy it in the UK since you only need to do a bit of work and you can drink it. Closest you can get is Methylated Spirits, basically Ethanol with stuff added to make it slightly toxic, won't necessarily kill you but its likely to make you blind, and it tastes nasty, bad enough to stop me trying it again, maybe. You know what its like, 3 am no cough mixture, nail polish or toilet duck left, anything goes.
[ramble off]

Used it on a fair bit of stuff now and it does work. The part loses a small amount of the mirror finish, hardly noticeable for most people, but all it takes to clean is a bit of soap and water.

[calum17]

oh ok thanks. dont know if it is laqured - the owner i bought it off didnt do it, was before him ... makes it atleast 2 years old.
i think ill try the autoglym - if it doesnt work then there isnt much other than redoing it i guess and i cant afford that. but if it does work ill be happy

[Ichy]

If is not a factory finish then its unlikely its been lacquered so autoglym(?) is unlikely to touch it. Autosol is next best but personally I think you would be better off getting a polishing mop and some polishing compounds. All decent polishes are abrasive to some extent, its just a matter of finding the one that best matches the circumstances.

[veeeffarr]

[Ichy]

[veeeffarr]