Cleaning front pipe

i'm led to belive its a very shi##y grade of s/steel which is why it discolours easy. i'm sure someone will put me right on this.

Pipes aren't chromed anymore, they're stainless (unless they're aftermarket titanium).

Wet n dry would've taken the chrome plating off down to the non-stainless steel underneath which would rust like mad. But wet n dry on stainless just takes the surface crud off down to the untouched stainless underneath.

The crud is a mixture of all sorts, remember the pipe's hotter than an oven so anything thrown onto it will probably stick to it and attack it.

Room temperature stainless doesnt form "rust" (iron oxide) but forms a passive layer of chromium oxide which is still shiny. Chloride ions are the enemy of stainless, these are in road salt, there is a special grade of stainless used for chemical plant handling hot chlorides and similar, I don't suppose our pipes are made of this !

The brown discolouration nearest the cylinder head is the carbon in the steel migrating to the surface, chromed pipes had it a lot worse because they had more carbon in the base steel.

I think !

That's all very techical for an "I think" statement.

Kwak- those hangers are very nice. Do you have Autosol in your veins instead of blood?!

its the best metal polish ive every used. and yea i bleed white creamy stuff.

I'm not sure what to say about that!

[Lissa]

Kwak, have you ever tried using Belgom alu? It actually works out cheaper than solvol, and personally I prefer it.

where do i get that from lissa?

[Lissa]

M&P............or MPS as I think they are now............sell it, but I get mine from the same company I get my polishing mops and compounds from.

http://www.thepolishingshop.biz/acatalog/Belgom.html

Recently took off the front pipe and polished it up with one of these.... mostly a Scotchbrite type of material,usually called flap wheels,made for deburring and polishing.
Took about 20 mins in a cordless drill to bring it all back to shiny (it was manky brown all over).
Cleaned 400kms of road crap off it yesterday which accumulated since i cleaned it and its a shiny golden colour..... odd, but fine.

The wheels cost about 15euro each, but they seriously cut out the elbow grease requirement. Pipe would have been perfect had I bothered to spend another 10mins using autosol et al at the time.

post a pic of your zorst matey.