Cleaning metal?

Anyone know how I could, if thats even possible, to make my Q4 look cleaner.. (more like new)

It's sort of a mess right now with the cross continent road trip.



So yeah any ideas?

Also, it's starting to lose fabric each side of the Aluminum main cylinder. I guess it's time for a repack?

Hmmmm. I have no answers. I was wondering if the outside of the muffler got hot enough to melt bags because I have felt it after running and it did not seem too hot. I guess that it does.

duanew wrote:

I guess that it does.

It's fine as long as it doesn't make contact. I rode 7 to 13hrs a day stopping for gas and food and it burnt on like the 4th to last day because the bag slipped off an awkward way and touched with the exhaust.

Get some "Goof Off." If that doesn't work. Spray it black or silver with some high heat header paint.

I'd hit it with a rotary tool with some kinda scuff pad on it personally. Then just work my way down the ladder in terms of different grits till it looked decent enough. Or just get the burnt shit off and hit it with some kinda hi-temp black paint, hehe.

Med, I'd repack it. As for cleaning burned stuff like that, Goo Gone works a treat. The only thing that it won't remove are the heat scores. You'll have to get a fine grit wet/dry sandpaper (800) and just sand it off...if you want to keep it looking normal.

call fmf and they can most likely send you just the sleeve. if you have a pop rivet tool your all set and prob for like $30 or so

Oven cleaner is the way to do it on steel pipes, I don't know what it does to aluminum but next time you are in the store you could read some instructions, maybe there is something that won't hurt aluminum
If you get on it with sandpaper it will never look the same again
I used to make knives as a hobby and I can tell you sanding a piece of metal and making it look like you didn't sand it takes a lot of tricks, on a large piece of material it's even harder

You can buff/polish AL. Its a bitch, but doable with the proper buffer and compounds.

If the melted material is nylon, use a heat gun & acetone to soften & remove it since its basically a plastic. It should work without harming the anodized finish on the aluminum. Flitz metal polish should remove the heat scorching.

Mothers aluminum and mag polish works very well! Cleaned up this 89 KDX pretty good.