Header at 23k miles
 

3 years of polishing/time wasting. Once the shine has been achieved it is easy to maintain but would be impossible without my massive mudflap. I had to remove it briefly because it fouled my new, correct profile, front tyre. One journey without it and a couple of puddles soon had me modifying and refitting it.

https://i.ibb.co/2PM00bw/Header1.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/0mh3R6M/Header2.jpg

How it started:

https://thumb.ibb.co/fzGeQ8/SV-when-...haust-crop.jpg

What's interesting (to me, at least) is that the link pipe that runs under the right hand cover seems to have more of a texture and, as yet, doesn't look as smooth as the header, although this pic doesn't show it that well.

https://i.ibb.co/cT3xHgw/Header3.jpg

The various visible screws are still covered in their winter grease but any I've missed have corroded quite quickly.

The cat will polish up but I haven't bothered with the pre-cat pipe since it's too difficult to reach. I've half-heartedly polished the rear header but this pic makes it look better than it is in reality, it soon loses its shine (hotter maybe?)
https://i.ibb.co/9bMysGJ/Header4.jpg

Overall, it's held up fairly well considering it rarely gets washed. The leading edge of the gear lever shaft, the gear lever itself, the ABS junction under the headlamp have suffered corrosion plus various screws I forgot to grease. I average about 8000 miles/year, the bike will be 3 years old in 2 weeks time.

Re: Header at 23k miles
 

Shiny!

I Harpic my pipes but don't polish them (I prefer the satin silver look). The front header down to the first clamp goes gold within a couple of rides ...

Yes, the gear lever and front ABS splitter on mine have corroded too, and the banjo fittings on the left front caliper (the fittings on the right front are still very shiny for some reason).

Re: Header at 23k miles
 

That is wonderful, but I can’t help thinking you should get out a bit more :-)


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Re: Header at 23k miles
 

Never polished my 2016 AL7 pipes since new, in fact I sprayed them with high temp black paint so that they blended into black frame better, to me the shiny bits of exhaust under the bike especially stood out far too much and looked a bit strange....

Some pictures here. Towards bottom of page 5 http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.p...tlights&page=5. of after I sprayed heat shield and CAT plus pipes under the bike..

Also sprayed the shiny heat shield bit on silencer can because to my eyes it looked strange just stuck onto black silencer can, looks like I have saved a fortune on Max strength Harpic.

Re: Header at 23k miles
 

if that's the same as "get a life", I suppose you're right. All the polishing was done by hand with Solvol, no acid cleaners.

When I started riding all bikes had chrome exhausts and I suppose it's conditioned me to thinking that "proper" motorcycles have shiny pipes. I look at bikes with beautiful paintwork and then see corroded (car- like?) headers and it ruins the effect for me. Don't get me started on the abomination of wrapped exhausts... :smt091

Re: Header at 23k miles
 

... it was meant in a humorous way :-)

I’m a Triumph man at heart (although I do like Suzukis and have two of them), so I’m used to (and like) blue exhausts - that is just the way things are supposed to be in this universe.


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Re: Header at 23k miles
 

...and that's how it was taken :)

Honda used to double skin their exhausts to stop them going blue. BMW air cooled boxers seemed to blue their exhausts noticeably which always seemed at odds with their (alleged) pursuit of quality.

Re: Header at 23k miles
 

[QUOTE=SV650rules;3103813looks like I have saved a fortune on Max strength Harpic.[/QUOTE]

I'm only a quarter of the way through the bottle I got a couple of years ago for a quid from B&M Bargains :D

Header at 23k miles
 

Triumph riders treat the blue exhausts as a sort of badge of honour - all Triumphs turn the pipes blue within a few hundred miles, generally we like it like that.

SV 650 exhausts aren’t very shiny to start with, so turning blue isn’t so much of an issue. Well done with your bike, but I wouldn’t commit so much time to any of my bikes.

See below - lovely blue pipes:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...41ca864e26.jpg

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