Engine

Got a question for those out there who have worked on engine casings.
More specifically cleaning.

I have an Yamaha XS 400 special. I know its old.

Lets put it this way, the engine is really in need of a makeover. It
has this white powder that seems to be lingering after washes... maybe
it is an oxidizing residue? I did apply muratic acid a while ago. I
dont know. Either way it looks really flat gray, and it "smudgy" and
not the shiny casing I would like it to be, hence this question. I am
going for any available options however, I would hate to dismount the
engine. I have not tried just cleaning and painting with spray engine
paint. I hear that is NOT good for air cooled bikes, in regards to the
fins. Plus I would like to restorem not cover it up. I cannot find any
helpful information on how to polish or at most to crome this piece to
just look impressible, newer, or even better.

Here are the things I have tried to no avail:

- Muratic Acid of course
- Steel and Aluminum Polish
- Wax cleaner
- Hard soap and water
- Wheel brush
- Carb cleaners

 

Aluminum has a nice feature that protects it from corrosion. It
oxidizes evenly, if you
keep it dry. If you polish all the oxide off the aluminum, and then
fail to protect it from the oxugen in the air and you ride through a
puddle of water, or you wash the engine with water and don't dry it
off, you're going to get white spots.

Honda and Suzuki has some sort of clear urethane that is really tough
and takes lots off elbow grease and abrasive to remove. Anything you
can find in a rattle can is thin enough to spray through that tiny
orifice nozzle, but it's too thin to do much protecting.

You would need to strip off the old urethane, re-polish. solvent wipe
to get rid of any grease, and then re-urethane the cases every year.

Muriatic acid is swimming pool acid. I think it's hydrofluoric acid.
Try a drop of muriatic on a piece of scrap glass and see if it will
etch it. It use muriatic acid to clean the rust out of steel gas tanks.
It does leave the inside with a whitish color, like it's combining with
the steel.

If you're interested in a total restoration of such an old machine, you
probably will disassemble the engine and "do" all the parts
cosmetically eventually. If not, why worry? There are very few people
wandering around motorcycle hangouts that are going to "grade" your old
commuter bike.

You might re-think that position. There *are* high temperature engine
enamels available. It's like I said above, anything you can get in a
rattle can is too thin to do much protection.

But you can buy a quart of silver engine enamel like Yamaha used on the
side covers of my FZR-1000 and rent a compressor to spray all of your
prepared parts.

You might even look around for an epoxy paint. I used to re-paint the
frame on my MX machine every winter with epoxy paint and the guys at
the racetrack thought I had a brand new machine.