Hitchcocks Forum

Hi All,

I'm more of a riding and tinkering than a cleaning sort of person, but every once in a blue moon I get a fit of gealosy. I see so many pictures of Bullets looking very shiney, but no amount of autosol and elbow grease gets my alloy sparkling. How do people do it?

Polish = abrasive. Anything labelled a polish is an abrasive and hence will grind away at the surface. Hence I try to avoid paint polishes, give it a good clean and protect it with carnauba car paint wax, which can set as hard as concrete. Autosol is good at removing marks from chrome and aluminium but not really fine enough for a high gloss on aluminium. Two products I've found to work are Britemax Black Max which is for automotive paint and is ultra-fine, it can remove 4000 grit swirl marks or even polish spectacle lenses, and Smartwax Rim Wax which is quite good for cleaning and protecting chrome as well as the intended alloy wheels, it works on the exhaust too.

However I do not have a fetish for cleaning the bike, although the Rim Wax has reversed the spot rusting of the wheel spoke nipples, and the coating makes the wheels wipe-clean and lasts a good three or four months. If I get a tuit, I may treat the undersides of the mudguards to another helping of Waxoyl before winter.

Silvo or Autosol with 0000 grade Steel Wool; this is fine enough to polish glass, finish off with a soft cloth.
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Most of the highly polished parts will have been removed from the bike and polished on a buffing machine using the appropriate compound. For a one off its probably cheaper to get a local company to do it rather than buy the materials

Silvo polish.

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Once alloy has lost it's shine and gone that grey colour you have quite a job to get it back to silver.
Solvol will do it but it's a lot of hard work to do it by hand. A buffing wheel is the thing really.

A motorbike is generally too intricate to get a dual-action (DA) polisher into it. A polishing buff on a Dremel may work. I use a "Sonic Scrubber" (basically a big electric toothbrush) to get dirt off tricky corners but it can scratch. Aluminium goes grey as it oxidises and micro-scratches will accelerate the process. Steel wool no matter how fine will put little scratches into aluminium, the polish needs to be much finer to get a high gloss. Jewellers Rouge works but is incredibly messy, best suited to jewellery.

Where aluminium (or paint) has been highly polished it is best treated with a sealant or wax. Car paint sealants (resin) work on paint, Rim Wax seems to work well on metals. They keep air away from the surface. Solvol contains an oil for this purpose but the paste is fairly coarse.; Autosol has its uses, it will remove stubborn marks.



My brother in law had a one man business valeting cars, so we restored a few cars to concours condition with professional products and equipment. Polishing up a car is far easier than a bike. The ultra-fine Black Max I mentioned before contains no silicones (so one can spray-paint directly over it), so it has to be sealed with e.g. Britemax Extreme Elements (resin) before waxing with carnauba. I clayed the paint on the bike from new, DA-machined it (where it would reach), sealed it and treated it it with Autoglym High Definition wax. Shiny but the main purpose is to make the paint low-maintenance. The paint on the RE is not particularly thick, it will not take many repeat polishes before one goes through the clear coat.

I spend very little time cleaning the bike. I think I've washed it once. Dirt generally wipes off the wax, a little Meguiar's Quik Detailer spray can help. It's the time of year when local farmers spread muck on the roads ...

My 2001 Mazda 626 Handbook says not to use any abrasive polish as this will damage the protective clear coat. I only use the wash and wax types and only polished the car with non-abrasive wax a couple of times in fifteen years. It still retains its original shine, apart from a couple of small stone chips. Same with the Bullet.

Jefrs, read the initial post!
Jamaican9 want advice about polishing neglected alloy. The oxide needs to be removed which means abrasives (unless the part is removed and treated chemically - rhubarb works very well)
Jeweller's rouge? It would take an age.

Wet n dry and water Firstly?