Hitchcocks Forum

An elderly gentleman was admiring my bike last night. However he noted my exhaust pipe was starting to blue. He told me that "back in the day", bikers would wind some thin copper wire around the top couple of inches of the exhaust pipe to prevent this.
Anyone tried this? Does it work? How do I secures the wire, recommended knots etc?
Regards Curious of Plymouth

Just another old wives tale, it doesn't work, some bikes had a finned heat sink clamped to the pipe where it leaves the head, looks nice but again your pipe will still discolour.

A nice bit of blue around the top pipe is part of the character of the bike , or was back in my day,certainly more pleasing to the eye than having an ugly lump of wire botched on to it...my opinion only of course!

I have never heard of that one. However, I would say the theory is the wire will act as a heat sink and cool the pipe like the fins on the engine. Bluing is usually caused by retarded timing, weak mixture or speeding, although speeding on my Bullet was just a dream.

'back in the day' bikes never came out of some factories fitted with correctly manufactured double walled downpipes

Why the fuss? Pipes blue, tyres lose the little moulding blobs, the oil turns black, the fuel tank empties.

Andy

There's always THIS stuff if blueing pipes bother you, http://www.blue-job.com (don't blame me, I didn't think of the name). One of their UK distributors sells it here: https://motorcycleparts-uk.co.uk/blue-j ... blue%20job.



Never tried this particular polish, so I don't know if it's any good or not.



A.

Hi Just wondering why the links here do not link to any where when I click on them. I would like to see the chrome polish.
Thank you from binary.

Either highlight copy and paste or right click and open in new tab. The trouble with this polish is it is abrasive and removes a tiny bit of chrome, use it regularly and it will wear it right through.

Well, the blurb for the product claims otherwise.



Quote: "Blue-Job® Chrome Polish has a unique nonabrasive, highly concentrated, powder formula."



However, I don't know quite how they would achieve that without it being in SOME way abrasive, even if it is very fine powder. Too much rubbing in involved for a purely chemical reaction. Any clever ideas?






A.