There is nothing as sexy as a vintage bike shining brighter than when it was new. When I first bought the bike I spent a long time polishing the aluminum engine cases with a polishing wheel and buffing compound. This was a lot of work but the results were pretty good.

Unfortunately my nice and shiney right hand case got cracked when the wind blew over my bike. My left hand case got nasty looking from 5 years of neglect. WIth one neglecected engine case, and one very very neglected engine case off the donor motor, I was back to square one for polishing.

Needless to say, I was not going to put in that kind of time again polishing the cases for hours and hours. This time I got drastic. I got sandpaper. I started with 600 grit sandpaper, then moved to dremel wire brush for detail work. I next used 2000 grit sandpaper. Next I used various buffing compounds until the cases shined like new. Well, pretty close to new. There are still plenty of imperfections in that soft aluminum case, thats how you know its 30 years old :)

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Smll Med Lrg used to look good, then 5 years of neglect happend to unprotected aluminum	Smll Med Lrg this is just for the grip, not the paper	Smll Med Lrg i used 600 and 2000 grit sandpaper	Smll Med Lrg
Smll Med Lrg	Smll Med Lrg donor motor case, before	Smll Med Lrg after sanding, before polishing	Smll Med Lrg
Smll Med Lrg after sanding, before polishing	Smll Med Lrg both sanded and polished, didnt take too long	Smll Med Lrg could polish more but this is good enough in my book