Hi all,

got a second hand power cap for my XE engine - pic below (click for a larger image)... I think its cast alloy and is quite rough at the moment!

Will it polish up (even in theory) and if so how is the best way to go about it - I don't have a polishing wheel!!

Chris

With a lot of elbow grease maybe or you could get a polishing place to do it, they probably have some mechanical means of doing with soft abraisive wheels ? but probably a few hours work so may be expensive. Ive had stuff aqua blasted, glass beads in water. Ali stuff comes up amazing, it wont take all the roughness away but will look better plus its very cheap. Or you could have it powder coated ? again very cheap.

Could always get it chrome plated if it wont polish up.

If you get some fairly coarse wet and dry paper (100 grit)and a bucket of water, you should be able to rub it down so the finish is fairly smooth (lots of time and effort needed), then go to a finer wet and dry (200grit) then finish with finer still 300-500 grit.

You should then be able to polish with metal polish to bring up the shine.

It takes alot of time and effort, but should be ok.

Cheers

Dave

yep Ive done cast swing arms for bikes and fork legs and anything elts that I could get of

like most things you get out what you put in.

OK - bucket of water and the stereo on then!

I'll post the results... and if I ruin it I'll get it powdered!

Chris

you won't make it worse than it is. worst case, paint it then smooth it down,

I'd use a little dremel sanding cylinder for the bulk of the work - looks like quite big pits so will take some time to get it smooth.

I guess you have lots of spare time - there's nothing wrong with how it is,

Just popped out to get the throttle body grit blasted, and the bloke said he'd do that and the powercap for the same (token) amount... so I'll see what it looks like once its done...

Chris

Nono noooooooooooo!!!!

Don't grit blast ally whatever you do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BEAD BLAST!!

You need glass bead blast (or wet galss bead blast, the aquablast thingy)

Gritblasting will make it look awful!

Incidentally Clive who you are already dealing with has a template for an infill piece to go on top of those powercaps I think cos they use them on 16v conversions of mantas

Its OK Nat - I was being generic! The chap is going to use dry glass bead medium.... Thanks though!

I don't have any room over the powercap for a bit of Clives special engineering as the bonnet is REALLY close anyway! Looking forward to getting the header tank from him though.

Chris

phew! Ok no probs, you'll find bead blasted ally looks pretty good anyway. Not polished, but it looks nice and smart.

i dont understand this fetish for spending multi-hours on polishing castings when time could be more productive spent elsewhere. Sure it will look nice but it also will if painted.

Personally if i had to polish something like that i think id get a polishing wheel for bench grinder.

Depends on the time available I guess......................I don't even paint em!!

That's why none of us on here have bought a car of the shelf - so we can do things differently....

I'm not in much of a panic to get it finished, and SWMBO does as much as me and so I don't get dramas about spending hours on the car.... I want it to look good, so I'm prepared to spend the time on it...

All good practice for the next project!

Chris

PS pics of it blasted just coming, but camera battery dead!

Blasted.... think I'll leave it like this!

Before .............and .............. After

Looks good. Will you have to put some lacquer on to stop it corroding?

Yep, either get it clear anodised or laquer it (clear anodising will be much nicer and not yellow like laquer can when it gets warm)

Looks smart!!

Ahh... wondered about that... where could do that??

Chris