Cleaning up carbs - general

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

I've just started cleaning my spare set of carbs for my 400 - they are almost fully dismantled - they have had a clean in my Ultrasound Bath at 65 deg using Allendale carb cleaner after initial general degreasing with clean petrol.

I am pleased with the overall results especially on the insides - needing a little extra cleaning with a soft tooth brush in a few areas.

The main body is a slightly coarser casting with a bit of a blue tinge whereas the carb bowl & top cap are a much smoother finish.

Whats the easiest way to give a polished finish to the top & bottom - I don't want to use paint or spend days polishing them?

Carb top cap by Macabe Thiele, on Flickr

[Oddjob]

Quite a lot of ingrained oil and dirt on that carb top. Plus a fair amount of damage, the scratches and such aren't too bad to get rid of but the dents on the upper edge can be hard to either smooth out or get rid of.

If you try and buff it out the oil ingrained will surface after a short while and make the finish look like it's water damaged, to get a decent result you must keep going down until the alloy is a uniform grey in colour, Then you can polish it.

If you've got a Dremel it's easy to get some decent results.

Just bought 2 new Dremels in the last few days, getting quite a collection of them. The new ones are the Dremel 4300 and they are a big improvement of my old 4000s.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Gawd knows how someone managed to put a row of small dings on the top surface of number 2 Carb top cover.
I've never owned a Dremel but it's on my next potential tool buying list. Forgive my ignorance but how do they work - are they a small D/A type pad or is it a cutting stone of some sort?

I have this vision of cutting right through soft Alluminium !

[Bryanj]

Dremel is a high speed electric die grinder that you can attach small cutting discs to(that shatter and fly everywhere) grindstones and sanding discs.

[Laverda Dave]

Dremels can be good and bad. Don't bother buying the wire brushes, they are useless, don't last more than a couple of minutes and the strands fly everywhere. As Bryan mentioned, the cutting discs are good but are prone to shattered if not used very gently. However, I wouldn't be without mine as they are very useful.

[Matt_Harrington]

Ted, I use similar things on my bench polisher to this:
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They are really go a doing the initial cleanup phase - then followed by polishing mops etc.
Only problem with ally castings is that they don't 'alf heat up quick!
Matt

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

The alternative might be a  Bench Polishing Wheel plus some cutting paste. Not sure what sort of money to spend or how powerful the motor needs to be. I gave my old bench grinder away decades ago as I had no use for one.

[Oddjob]

Dremels have moved on a lot since most of you used one last. Cutting wheels for instance are very robust now. Get the Speedclic ones and you can cut a large amount of metal with just one disc.

Wire brushes are better but still not great TBH.

The flap wheels and the abrasive discs you can get now are a god send, grinding stones are good so long as you buy the orange looking type and genuine Dremel.

A Dremel Ted is like a very small hand portable drill, the 4300 for instance has a 3 jawed chuck which makes changing end tools exactly the same as a drill.

It's one of those tools that you wonder how you managed without it once you find what it's good at. For restoring alloy parts of bikes I don't think there is anything better.

The trouble with using things like a bench grinder (and I have 3 of those) is that it's a sledgehammer approach to a toffee hammer problem, they are far too big for small intricate items like castings.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Hi ken,
I've just tried a small mop head using my small cordless drill - using some Duzit metal polish - is there a better grade of abrasive paste you can recommend?
Thanks Ted

[Lobo]

I get through these like there’s no tomorrow - fantastically useful… and so cheap (approx £10).

[Laverdaroo]

I get through these like there’s no tomorrow - fantastically useful… and so cheap (approx £10).

I second that, these are brilliant.

[Oddjob]

Until you remove most if not all of the ingrained crap and the lacquer which will still be on there you're really wasting your time trying to polish.

If you want to wait until the bikes off the road I'll do them for you Ted, like I did the speedo dishes. Unless of course you have some spare.

Tried those mops, not great IMO, far better things out there for Dremels.

Like these. I just bought £100 worth of these. They should last me for a year or so. Fit 2 or even 3 on a mandrel, there is a dot on the back of the disc, this goes towards the Dremel so the fronds are fitted the right way. The dark green is 80 grade, dark blue 120, red is 240. After that it goes 400, 600, 1000, 2500. The 400 and 600 are ok for alloy but only really for smoothing out the marks from the rougher colours.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wobekuy-Bristle-Abrasive-Polishing-Accessories/dp/B097NHP7CM/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=8YTJ0GNSB02D&keywords=radial+brush+disc&qid=1659870686&sprefix=radial+brush+disc%2Caps%2C62&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzVUM2QkVDSlVXRVAwJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUExMDQzMjQ5MVc0S1hBVktDRThUJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAxOTczMjcxUTkxR09HUVA0MDFFJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

[Laverdaroo]

Might have an experimental purchase of those Ken, especially if you rate em.

[Oddjob]

I do Roo, almost as good a the Dremel Speedclic ones but those are over £5 for one brush. Don't waste your time with one disc on a mandrel unless you are trying to access a tight area (which these are very good at BTW) use 2 or 3 on each mandrel (they are supplied as well). They've just gone up £1, I paid £10.99 on August 2nd for the same kit. I also bought 60 dark green and 60 dark blue as those are the 2 colours I use a lot.

I broke my Black and Decker workmate yesterday, bought it in 1979 and it's been heavily abused. One of the wood slats broke in 2 after I jammed an engine on it. I use the workmate as my stand for my buffing machine so I'll need to make a complete new top for it out of solid oak. Might be Wednesday before I start to buff the fork sliders for you, spent most of yesterday sanding them (with those discs I may add) before flatting them with wet and dry. One is already done and one just needs to be done. I remembered you wanted the internals out of the 550F forks as well didn't you.  Need to find a box long enough now.

[Laverdaroo]

Good advice, thanks mate.
An order has just been placed. Are the dark green and dark bblue the most abbrasive or the ones that last the longest with effect?