The stripper has nothing to do with the way the material beneath it will look. Use whatever you need to to take off the paint. Chemical strippers have little or no effect on the aluminum. Unless that is corrosion has set in underneath the paint. I have delt with every type of finish imaginable. Bombardier uses a 3 part painting process on most of its parts. Its a real pain to get off. The majority of the DS parts are sand cast and extremely rough, therefore be prepared to work your .......... off.

 

I'm prepared to work it. lol. I have started sanding off the valve cover. I have a good question though. Do you get a better polish if you sand it with something higher than 240 grit. Say I use 500 or 1000 grit. I'm planning on using the three compound stuff (brown, green, white) to get my shine.

 

the finner the sand paper the shinnier end up with 1000 or so. would start with 320.

 

Go in steps to the finest paper you can use and still have a arm left after sanding all that. If you use 1000 it will polish up great you should only need the green and white. You will love that polish.

 

So you guys don't believe in using die grinders for your sanding huh. I'm going to try the grinder if I can get some 1000 grit discs, are they hard to find. If that doesn't work then I guess my only option is to hand sand it or have a dumb looking valve cover. But that is good, at least I am to far into the project where I have to continue with it.

 

If you have the proper tools then you will not need to do any sanding with anything finer than 240 grit. Let the buff motor do the work for you. That is why you use different rouges and wheels. The buff machine can work alot faster than you will ever be able to. You may even need to start with something rougher than 240 grit it all depends on the material before you start. Done properly, a part sanded with 240 grit will sand out to a near chrome finish in almost no time.

 

So once you get all the paint off, just use a buffer wheel and u can have polished cases in no time? Why do they sell for like 300 bucks then?

 

I have a little project in the works and the method I'm going to try for the polishing the motor is with an air die grinder ($45-75) and 3M scotch brite pads($50) box of 50 I think. I've used these a lot in the machine shop I work at and the AVFN grit pads leave a finish that would only require a couple cans of mothers (or equivilant) to have it shinig. just my 2 cents

Tom

Ohh, and if anybody trys this method be shure the engines is sealed tight, the scoth brite pads do all the grinding, cutting, polishing with silica and it will wipe out your motor if it gets inside.

 

I'm not exactly sure what a scoth brite disc for a angle grinder is. I think I have one and I tried it but had to stop because it wasn't going to work. Too coarse.

 

Once I get to the polishing stage what kind of tools do I need. What kind of wheels do I need to use with the different polishing compounds (brown, green, white).