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Restoring Exhaust pipes and finned collarpiece

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Charliecharlcomb:
Now I have opened a can of worms cleaning up some unloved areas of the bike I've decided to remove the exhaust pipes and try to safeguard them for the next 10 years.

They were NOS in 1992, have done 9,000 miles and are generally good but having removed them there are some small rust spots and areas where the chrome has rubbed off. Also one tiny hole where the muffler joins the downtube that could be spot welded as there is no other significant rust.

So, what would be the best way to arrest and protect the chrome from rust?

Also, now that everything else is going to look so nice, what would be the best way to make those finned collars (joint in the spares list) rust free and looking new?

Again, any advice would be welcomed

Cheers

Bryanj:
CAREFULL there is suposed to be a small hole on bottom just into silencer where down pipe is to allow condensation out

Charliecharlcomb:
Thanks Bryan, you are spot on of course. The hole is just along before the breather hole and is probably related. I'll make sure it isn't blocked.

Oddjob:
Very difficult to get the finned clamps looking good. I did a whole thread on just those alone, I think I spent around 20 hours on each one. I still have around 8 still to do. I had some rechromed after doing some smoothing work and some chrome ceramic coated, just to see which lasted longest.

I started with something like these



After a LOT of work, the castings are extremely rough, if you chrome them you leave loads of holes where water gets in, it's this which causes the rust problem. You need to remove all these casting marks, you can see how smooth this is.



One done in chrome ceramic, not polished yet. It's extremely hard and very resistant to road salt etc. I had the collets done in the same stuff so they matched.



And one chromed, you need to get right down the valleys as the chromer can't get in there to polish it, I can but it takes a good while to do.

McCabe-Thiele (Ted):
I cleaned my 500 finned front pipe clamps, using Kens plastic wheels, the castings are full of holes, hence why they rust. I settled silver for VHT paint to finish them off.

I have a new set that came with my 500 Delkevic 4 into 4 silencers that I never used, PM me if you are interested in buying them. They are chromed steel,  they look much better than my 500 originals, for complicated reasons I never used them.

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