You may have stepped right up to a fully custom-fabricated chopper, or you may have been customizing your yield style bicycle a minuscule at a time, or may be riding a great stock-bike. One thing is for unavoidable - a set of unquestionably great-looking and throaty-sounding pipes does a lot to add to the appearance and presence of the machine.
No matter how you get there, a set of fancy pipes can set you back - - generally at a minimum of 0.00, with no upper limit in sight for a one-of-a-kind triple-chromed pair of polished flame-throwers. Needless to say, high-end practice exhaust pipes are one part of any bike that catches your attention and these days at ChopperDetailing they all too often catch our attention for all the wrong reasons. Whether it is due to carelessness, lack of proper maintenance or easy bad-fortune, a lot of the bikes that we see come into Low Country Customs and ChopperDetailing for cleaning arrive with rather uncut boot-burn, pant-burn or "browning and bluing" on the heat shields and pipes. The ensue is a "disappointing-look" on what would otherwise be, by any measure, some pretty staggering bikes.
CHOPPER
In this newsletter we will talk about how to deal with "burning" and "bluing" in chrome pipes as two (2) detach problems with fully detach solutions.
Pant-Burn and Boot-Burn: unquestionably - in the case I have excellent to share with you, this could be labeled "anything-burn". A few weeks ago I worked on a chopper that had a plastic grocery bag that, after blowing over the road, melted on the transmit pipe (the whole bag). The owner had tried for more than 2 years to get it removed, but it only ever got blacker and more rock-hard as the pipes heated and cooled over that time. When I got the bike I immediately noticed this ugly burned bag. I also noticed, however, that the pipes had also severely "blued". My plan for dealing with these two detach problems was to first take off the burned / melted bag and, second, to then take off the bluing.
I have read a lot of articles and tried many separate approaches to boot-burn and pant burn. This was the first "plastic grocery-bag-burn" I had seen. It was far more uncut (and the melted material was much deeper) than any boot or pant-burn I had removed from other bikes. My solution, however, was the same. No need for caustic or corrosive chemicals (that could damage other parts of the bike beyond repair), no use of high-speed polishing tools, no grinder materials - - I immediately pulled out a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser from my detailing kit, wetted it with a minuscule Sprite-Zero soda, and started to work. The stringy thin areas of the bag-burn came off reasonably quickly, but the major section (about 10" x 3") didn't want to budge. I decided, after 2-hours of heavy elbow-grease, pressing the Magic Eraser into the burn with the palm of my hand, that I needed some stronger "backing" than my hand could offer.
So - I turned to my set of unquestionably 100% favorite needful tools:
I took out a Pimp Stixxx tip that is a 6" x .5" piece of flat nylon, then I located the Pimp Stixxx tip on the back of the Eraser pad and the pad on top of the burn and, bending the nylon tip to match the shape of the pipe diameter, began to work the pad back and forth in small areas. It wasn't easy but after about 3 hours (and 6 Magic Erasers later) the grocery-bag-burn was 100% fully gone. The best part? No scratches or dulling to the pipe finish, and no ruined paint or metal from "oven cleaner" (a generally recommended and foolish approach) or any other greatest chemicals. None.
"Browning & Bluing": Once I had completed the "burned-plastic-bag-removal", I then turned my attention to the bluing in the pipes and the heat shields. This was, as it turned out, extensive. I removed the heat shields (as noted - these had some bluing - a bad sign) and it became unavoidable that this bicycle had been driven without proper tuning. It is safe to say that all pipes (and some heat-shields) will generally "brown" or "blue" a bit, But - if this is uncut down the length of the pipe(s) [if 30% or more of the pipes and/or heat-shields have discolored heavily], then the machine is likely not running with a proper fuel-to-air aggregate or ignition-timing, and this often causes uncut browning or bluing, to a degree that is far beyond the accepted coarse minimum.
My assumption that this bike was in need of some serious tune-up work was correct. As it turned out, the bike was running very rough - - often not beginning at all, and was in the Lcc shop to have some serious machine work done, so I had the benefit of having the pipes fully removed, manufacture it easier for me to work on them. When I first got this costly set of pipes laid-out on the floor, here is what I observed (see picture):
I intentionally laid the pipes on a set of soft towels and I sat on the floor. This gave me the best possible combinations of bracing and positioning to use while applying force to work on the problem. I had, right there on the floor with me, a box of Blue-Job and a bottle of Flitz. I also made use of my Pimp Stixxx and any Microfiber towels. To begin the process I used the Flitz to clean the pipes, from end to end, of any grease, grime, sand and road-dirt. Removing this allowed me to see the depth of the bluing, and this also made unavoidable that any dirt or grinder elements had been removed from the pipe prior to me beginning the "cleaning and buffing" process with the Blue-Job cleaner. Skipping this step would have meant maybe scratching the cease while removing the bluing. As you can see in the photo above, the "bluing" with these pipes was about as deep and uncut as it could maybe be, and this meant that I was in for a great deal of work if I intended to return these pipes to some level of "show-ready-finish".
I used the Blue-Job as directed by the stock constructor - - first wetting the supplied polishing cloth, followed by lightly and carefully dabbing it into the Blue-Job powder and then rubbing this onto the exterior of the pipe, working in small areas only while maintaining a "paste" consistency with the Blue-Job cleaner on the pipe. I found that I could work the paste for about 5-to-7 minutes before it would begin to dry out and harden. In order to polish for a longer period I could re-wet the polishing cloth a bit. (Note: Be just when re-wetting - - a minuscule moisture goes a long way, and too much moisture can make the paste come to be runny, forcing you to use more of the powder to thicken the consistency back into paste again).
If I allowed the paste to get too hard by drying-out too much, it could be quite difficult to remove. It was because of this difficulty with wiping & dismissal that I also found it was best for me to stop and value my work as soon as the drying had progressed to about 50-60%, check the strengthen [or lack-thereof ] of my work, and assess the depth of the full discoloration. This gave me a clue about how much more I needed to polish any section. Often I found that I did not need to polish the same spot a second time. It was great for me to move to an entirely new section of the pipe(s).
As I mentioned above: About every 5 minutes or so I would stop, take a good Microfiber towel and wipe off the Blue-Job to see how well I had accomplished the dismissal of any discoloration. As needed, I would then re-work an area again (using the same steps), or I would move to someone else small section of the pipe. Begin wiping off... Continue wiping off... cease wiping powder paste off, then inspect & value the results.
After about 2-to-3 hours of this work per-pipe, I ended up with a virtually "new" finding set of pipes, ready to be re-installed back onto the chopper.
Ultimately - With the pipes re-installed and the machine work complete, and with just tuning and timing (and assuming no errant grocery bags flying over the road in front of the bike), this set of pipes was once again ready to assume the role for which they were intended - - to loudly & proudly proclaim this bike as a hot-looking thundering machine.
There you go - - a easy solution to generally provocative problems that every bicycle owner confronts. I was thrilled at the results (though not surprised - this is the process we all the time use and we get consistently stellar results). Time consuming? Yes. Tiring on the fore-arms, elbows and wrists? Yes. Amazing? Look at the photos in this newsletter and then you tell me............
The only down-side to this particularly difficult yet very rewarding Detailing job? The owner of Lcc, though thrilled beyond reliance (and more than a bit incredulous, inspecting the hundreds of dollars that had previously been spent trying to strict these problems, especially the dismissal of the melted grocery bag), sheepishly told me that he didn't need or intend for me to take off the burned-bag and bluing.... The bike owner had unquestionably decided to buy a new set of pipes for the bike from Low Country Customs and have them installed the very same day.
Oh-well... At the very least he can sell the "used pipes" without a grocery-bag melted into them or unsightly bluing, and this means selling them for a greater profit, maybe even adequate to recover a few of his costs from trying to "fix" this for a combine of years.
This description copyrighted - July, 2007 - all possession reserved: http://www.ChopperDetailing.com
The 'Enemies' Of Hot seeing Chrome Pipes CHOPPER
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