Aluminum polishing tips?

Here we go with the first question!

I jumped into polishing the engine bay panels this afternoon, and need any tips y'all might have on how to do this. First, let me say that I've been through the archives and read up on the different products. My method so far has been to go over the area first with Eagle One metal polish (the cotton/felt material with polish pellets embedded in it), as it cuts pretty well, and is cheap & readily available. Then, I went over the area a second time using the Southern Shine polish. This seems to work fairly well, except...

There are still a bunch of little white dots on the aluminum that this isn't taking out. They look like something off the road splashed up on the panels, leaving the spots behind. I've run into something like this on small trim pieces before, and simply buffed it out with an SOS pad, then polished. If I do that here, I'm afraid I'll wind up with swirl marks in the aluminum. Is this something the Alcoa PDQ might take care of?

Also, anybody know of an electric polishing tool that would be handy in the engine compartment? Something a little larger than a Dremel, but smaller than an angle grinder. (We're not set up compressor-wise for continuous duty like an air-powered buffer.)

Thanks!

Hi Zach:

Try alcohol before you start polishing. Rick showed me how effective alcohol can be at cleaning stuff, especially aluminum panels.

Get us some more photos of the car in here.

Juan

Zach,

Notice how good the firewall looks. A local detailer did that for me with Eagle One. He said it just took "A LOT" of elbow grease. I have killed myself with those wheel well covers trying to get those spots off. Maybe the alcohol will work. I never tried that one.

Stock up on band aids also.

John

Zach,
Have you tried Mothers Mag Wheel Polish?
Keith

Hi Zach
I started to polish my aluminum panels before installing with buffing stuff from Eastwood's on an electric buffer and did one panel and it looked like a mirror.

It was too shiny for me so I decided to go with a satin finish that I did with scotch brite pads and then sealed them with Zoops Seal to stop the oxidation process. I never used the Zoops stuff before so I can't say if its good or bad!

I guess time will tell!

Thanks for all the suggestions! Cy & I picked up a can of alcohol at lunch today, and I will try that as a first step in the process.

Yes, I did notice the difference in the firewall! John, I'm almost convinced that the wheelwell covers got splattered with road-splash that had concrete dust in it from the roadway. The little spots look identical to diamond plate on a friend's truck who drove through where the DOT was cutting expansion joints in the concrete. It could be what caused that little spot you showed me on the wind wing, too.

Jeff, I would love to see pics of your engine bay. I would really prefer the brushed look to polished, but am worried about getting obnoxious swirls & scuffs instead of a finished, brushed look. How did you do yours with the Scotchbrite? Do you think I can do it in my case, with the car already assembled?

Juan - I'm going to make some pics this afternoon.

You may also try some CLR, but I would test it on a very small area. Also, you can get a polishing kit with the red, grey, and white rouges. The red will remove some of the small imperfections and the white makes things pretty. For big touch up jobs I use Flitz and a Mother's power ball.
Once you get everything the way you want it go buy a de-humidifier for your garage and kiss your deep polishind days goodbye!

Justin

Zach,

There are gazillion different products out there - although the main ingredient for success with whatever you use is, of course, good old elbow grease ;)

Thanks everybody - I'll have to try to work on it tomorrow night or the next. I lost the power steering pump in my daily driver this afternoon, so that little repair has cut into fun time this evening.

Zach....I have used a metal polish called 'Auto-Sol' for
more years than I care to remember.
It comes in a black and gold tube.
I have used it with great effect on my allum. foot box panels
and fire wall panels for the last 14 years.( plus all the other shiney stuff )
Mike

Polished panels will drive you crazy trying to keep them that way! Plain old mothers gives good results for minimal effort. Proper polishing compounds and tools (Caswell has a GREAT polishing forum) give the pro results. Me, good old purple scotchbrite pads and wd-40 makes short order of it and leaves a nice satin finish. Takes only minutes compared to polishing. If you must polish, clear annodize.

Success!!!

Brushed finish is what I really wanted, for the above-mentioned reasons about continually polishing. Just wasn't sure how to get the brushed look and make it look "right." The WD-40 & Scotchbrite did the trick! Took the afternoon off, picked the supplies up on the way home, and got to work. Shop didn't carry purple, so I tried white (not abrasive enough), then switched to gray - perfect! I had no idea how bad aluminum stinks when you start cleaning the crud off, though!

On the inner fenders, I did a "wax-on, wax-off" swirling motion, giving them a nice machine-brushed look. On the footboxes, I started at the firewall & pulled the pad straight out over & over again, yielding more of a mill-finish look. (I'll post pics tomorrow when we can get photos out in the sun.) I left the firewall alone for now, because John had it cleaned up nicely already.

And I've cleaned every piece of bare metal or chrome in sight with alcohol. I had no idea how wonderful it was for wiping off that thin film of grime that builds up on items under the hood!

THANKS, THANKS, THANKS!!!!

For years and years I have used this on my Chrome on motorcycles and cars. Good old Windex. It does a great job. Had a friend of mine from the West Coast recommend it on Harley's and it worked.

Congrats Zach and the car Just got off another long trip. I use windex on my cars as well, works great and it is about the best all around cleaner.

Ralph