What do I use to clean the engine to make it look new

[JamesH]

I spent many a happy hour with petrol, paraffin, Brillo pads, lolly sticks, Dremel with little wire brushes, cleaning my engine before painting it with VHT paint. It was worth all the effort in the end despite the stubbed and sore fingers.



Cheers

Dennis

I have to say that finish looks f*ing superb. Bravo.

[MrDavo]

Regarding patina, I was talking about it to a friend today, who has a very original (and valuable) round case 750 Ducati.

He’d bought, at some expense the missing original stickers, including Marzocchi ones for the forks.

Basically they looked far too new and stuck out like a sore thumb. He ended up ‘wearing’ them with wire wool, until they looked like they’d been there for years.

[Spitfire]

Must admit they look impressive Spitfire, only thing which I think detracts from the black engine is the red paint on the Honda emblem on the generator cover, would be much better black like the silver engine. I may also have done the barrels silver to break up the black a little but that's just a personal taste of mine. I do like the way the silver bolts stand out against the black, I did my 500 engine in a similar colour scheme but polished the fin edges on the head to give it a little contrast.

The Original idea with the F2 was to build a cafe racer, I resprayed the whole bike red down to the handle bar controls, so the red Honda on the cover was to match that, the engine was put together in about 1994 and I could not remember what I did to it so it is now in pieces again. I also decided to put it back to all black but have not really made up my mind on that one, at the moment I'm locating all the cycle parts that are scattered around the garages and loft to get it looking like a bike again.

Cheers

Dennis

[Colonial-Clive (yindi)]

Hi, I recently had to work on my van engine and 140k of oil leak and grime to get through, happened along an article (don’t know where) about Cif perfect finish oven&grill 100% tough grease removal, followed instructions and boy did it do the job. Having said that it is a cast iron block so I don’t know how it will react on alloy it’s only a couple of pounds and you could do a test section. It might also take the paint off the engine, it saved me hours with the pressure washer and gets into all the nocks and crannys.

[Mikie]

Re : ultrasonic cleaners .. they are great for cleaning carbs etc and they dislodge dirt etc in the internal galleries etc but not everything they are cracked up to be and require additional equipment to be employed in conjuction with them (i.e media blasting)
For example if you have water ingress into carbs that causes the white horrid coating on the float bowls etc, an ultrasonic cleaner won't touch it.  I have a massive industrial one that I got from work and repaired and it's great for general cleaning of part prior to bead blasting etc. Be sure to use proper fluid designed for delicate aluminium parts though in  de-ionised water (Eurocarparts is the cheapest place for DI water)
Beware of some cheap Chinese (direct from China)  ones that self distruct after a short time of use. I think places like Allendale do Chinese ones but vetted for decent build quality. They also sell the specialist cleaning fluids.

The test for a U/S cleaner is to put a bit of thin aluminium foil in it for a few minutes and then remove it and hold it to the light and it should be peppered with tiny holes if the U/S action is working properly. The cavitation bubbles punch tiny holes in it.

Thanks for that bit of info on the ultrasonic cleaners. I was thinking about getting one