Engine Bay Polishing

[Flatland2D]

I've decided to go for the polished look for everything I can in my engine bay. It's the cheapest way I can color coordinate everything and it looks awesome. I've read up on it a bit, but I'm just wondering if anyone has some quick tips to get me started. My goal is something like the picture below; it's what inspired me to do this. It belongs to TypeG. I started on the throttle body, which is maybe the most difficult piece with all it's nooks and crannies. I spent an hour and a half, and I'm really not satisfied with it. I'm thinking I'll spend a few more hours on it when I get the chance (finals week). I want that polished chrome look, and I've got a long way to go. You can see the edges where it has a mirror finish. I used 320, 400, 800, 1500 grit sandpaper (wet) with some Mother's polish afterwards. Would any tools help or should I stick with my hands? How hard should I press? And I'm going to remove that bracket. Sadly I don't have a 10mm socket with me.

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[raiden571]

a dremel with the proper grit sanding papers should work well

[Running925]

your on the right track & it's lookin good.. keep it goin!

[Flatland2D]

I worked on it again last night. It's starting to get a good shine. I kind of cheated in that I only really polished the top, the only part you're able to see when it's on. I went from 400/800/1500 several times and looked at where I needed more work. I need to get some polishing wheels for my dremel and some rouge. I'm hoping that'll really give the shine that I'm after. The Mother's polish works well but only on surfaces extremely smooth. I tried it on my exhaust (Tanabe Hyper Medallion) and it looks brand new. I'm hoping it'll work well for touch ups once the rouge works it a little smoother.

I'll get more pictures up later. I have to use my car today so I have to put this back on for a while. I really want to do the valve cover sometime. Someone recommend it's easiest just to buy another valve cover and put it on when you finish. I might have to do that, but the major motivation for this project is that it's so cheap. It'll take a least a week and I don't think I can afford that much downtime on my car, either.

[jhightower31]

Very fine steel wool will also help out before you put the polish on. It will get any swirl mark out that you can still see. I did the same thing on my CAI once it got kind of beat up. The only prob. is that it takes some time.

[totalimmortal]

My buddy did his end tanks on his front mount, this kid did an awesome job. He said he did it all with his dremel. He dremeled on the mothers with a polishing pad untill it smoked.

[Flatland2D]

That's good to hear. I'm sure some rouge on a dremel followed by Mother's on a dremel will really bring the shine out. I'll be picking up this project again once finals are over and I have some more money to buy rouge. Anybody know where I can buy it?

[Flatland2D]

I found some rouge at Lowe's. It's called Cleaning & Polishing Compound #6: High Gloss Polishing. It's in the tools section. Wow, this stuff really makes a difference! The throttle body looks almost like chrome now. It's not a true "mirror" finish but it's extremely brilliant. I tried to capture all the reflections in the pictures. Shiny objects are so hard to photograph.

So here's the process. Sand with 400, 600, 800, then 1500 grit and sand in a different direction (90 degrees off) with each higher grit. Some grits can be substituted as I did (320, 400, 800, 1500). Changing directions each time is hard on such a small piece like this and I didn't do it, just thought it was worth mentioning. Once you have it looking and feeling really smooth, get a Dremel, some felt polishing pads, and the previously mentioned rouge. Touch the felt pad to the rouge as it's spinning (very high speed) and it will melt some off onto the felt. Use moderate force when polishing. The rouge has to have enough force to cut like sandpaper but too much will overheat the Dremel and polish.

I plan on sealing it with some stuff called ZoopSeal. There's only one place in my city that sells it according to their website and they're far away. It'll probably be a while before I can put some on. Anyone else have some recommendations for sealants? Preferably ones that won't fade, get dull, or yellow with heat. ZoopSeal is supposed to be good up to 400 degrees and is claimed to last for 2 to 3 years.

There's a long ways to go to have my whole engine bay shiny like this. I plan to take a few things off here and there to polish whenever I have time. I'm in no hurry. It'll probably take a few months, or even a year depending on how much time I devote to this. For the throttle body I probably have about 5 hours sanding, 1 hour polishing and half an hour cleaning it up, all spent over the course of a couple days.





These pics are of the bare finish without any Mother's polish applied. The rouge did a pretty good job getting it shiny. I might put some Mother's on to protect it until I can seal it.

[Ur 2 Slow 4 J]

damn thats phucin clean dawg

[waaBAAH]

good job with the polishing......turned out pretty nice with the method your doing. the key is time. you could cut your time pretty good by buying a little 5hp buffing wheel. something that would sit on your shop bench. you wouldnt need to go higher then 600 grit if you are using a buffing wheel. by doing this you would really cut your labor time down. if i was doing it, this project would be done in an hour or less. keep in mind that aluminum wont shine like chrome plating but will look pretty close. keep up the work. also look into cartridge rolls for your dremel to get in the "nooks and crannies".

[pakmax]

These bits look great!
But hey there`s better things in life than polished engine bays. . .

[TypeG]

how are you comming along? any updates? later.