best way to refinish shock body's

[oldred95]

Alright for whatever reason the shock body's are painted black and its chipping, faded and just plain ugly. I want to go back to a polished aluminum finish. The thing is the shock body's have a few nicks and rough spots here and there and I'm wondering what is the best way to go about smoothing these spots out without roughing the aluminum up too bad. Is it as simple as a medium grit sand paper and work up to a super fine 2000 or so grit and then polish the shock body? Here's a pic of what it looks like now.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v604/oldred95/DSC00117.jpg

[james9r9r]

Maybe where the nicks are a fine wire brush and the sandpaper like you said above.

[Aka_am]

What i do is, wire brush the paint off...start from a 220 and get all the knicks that i can out and then move up to a 320 then a 400 and then use rubbing compund and then polishing compound comes out good.

Looks the same as when i went up to 1200 and used mothers mag and alunium poslih with a dremel....so yeah

[brddog7683]

check out my thread on polishing my front rim, basically the same for you and the shock tubes. Get yourself a mini Powerball and some 'Mothers' aluminum polish...does wonders. I would first start out with some 220 if you have any major gouches to clean up and work to maybe 800 grit and finish off with the powerball.

http://www.3wheelerworldforums.com/showthread.php?t=63582