Polishing COMPLETE!
#72
#76
Polishing
It's well worth it im my opinion. It gives your bike more of a "presence", if you know what I mean. Just be ready to put in a lot of hours in order to get it just right. For me (not taking the wheels off and not having a stand) it took about a total of 9-10 hours total, which was spread over the course of a week. Taping the tire and the rim took the most time. The rest was downhill.
Put the bike up on a rear stand.
Remove wheel, remove tire
Replace wheel on the bike
Start the bike and put it in first - let it idle.
Start with 100 grit standard sandpaper and hold against the rim
Careful not to pass the last lip near the spoked area
Remove all the paint with the 100
Do both sides of the rim
Change to 150 standard sandpaper and repeat the process - you will see the metal cleaning up with the finer grade sandpaper.
Now get the garden hose and start it running slow
Use 220 wetpaper and remove all the scratches left by the 150 - both sides
Keep the water pouring on the sandpaper and the area you are working on
Next 320 wetpaper until the 220 scrathes are gone
Next 400 wetpaper to remove 320 scratches and so on.
Each stage only takes about 5 minutes per side as the bike does all the work
From 400 move to 600 wetpaper.
This should finish the sanding - if you want mirror finish keep going through 800, 1000, 1200, 1500 wetpaper - thats what I did.
Once you are finished, dry the surfaces and apply the Autosol - lots of pressure. fairly easy as the bike is still doing the labor. Some guys like Mothers polish I prefer the Autosol.
Once you have your high shine look it over and make the decision to go back and remove any small blemishes you may have missed - say at the 400 or 600 stages.
Be careful when sanding in towards the center of the rim and make sure you have a nice clean dividing line between the polished and the painted surfaces.
Doing the front requires a lot more work.
I place the bike on the front stand
Remove the wheel
Remove the tire
Using the same grades of sandpaper as used for the rear wheel I remove as much of the paint from the rim area to be polished with my small orbital sander. I'd say you get about 70% this way. The other 30% has to be done by hand - just the price of having those pretty wheels.
Added bonus with polished rims is no more paint scratches when getting tires put on..
People think its a lot of work to keep the shine up but it isn't really. I use Autosol probably 5 times a year to refresh the shine. Afterwards I use Speedy Polish to put a protective coat on the rims. Speedy has a silicone base and works wonders.
There's a pic of my R6 with polished rims, frame and swingarm in the gallery.
#78
Guest
Posts: n/a
instead of using lot of tape and taking the time trying to get it to stick in between the tire and rim i use playing cards. just go down to your local dollar store or where ever and by a cheap deck of playing cards, better yet a deck a gradschool flash cards (bigger). you can stick the cards inbetween the gaps of the tire and rim and then go to town whether it be painting or polishing. it works great as ive done this a number of times on many different types of tires and rims.
good luck
good luck