Thinking about bead blasting my engine.

[tkekfs]

I have my engine mostly disassembled (except for the camshaft and valves). The bike has been sitting in a barn since 1974 and is pretty crusty. I am not trying for a show bike, just a nice looking rider. I was thinking about having the engine bead blasted or walnut blasted to clean up some of the staining. What do you guys use to get your engines looking nice? If you do media blast what do you mask with?

After you get everything cleaned up does anyone clear coat their engine to keep it nice? If so do you use high heat clearcoat on the whole thing or just the head and cylinders?

Any opinions on painting the side cover and carb covers silver (like factory) or blasting them and clear coating the same as the rest of the engine?

Thanks,
Kevin.

[Hahnda]

Well I'll tell you what I did. I stripped my head and cylinders and top cover and sandblasted them. I taped up all ports and openings but knew some sand would find its way in. Sandblasting will leave them kind of dull. Then I used a scotchbrite wheel and somewht polished them back to an original looking sheen. Then I let the parts sit in hot soapy water a few hours with a rinse every so often. Once they were pretty clean I waited for the wife to leave and I stuck the parts in the dishwasher on the pots and pans cycle. DO NOT skip the pre-clean soak in the hot sopy water step. The parts will be to dirty and it will create problems with the dishwasher. I found this out on a previous rebuild.

Anyway the parts come out sparkling clean and look great. Not a grain of sand to be found.

As far as clearcoat I say no. Clear coat will yellow and start to flake. These engines and millions of other aluminum engines never had any sort of clear on them. Some were painted but many were just raw aluminum. If you keep the engiine clean and give it a polish every once in a while it should be fine.

My sidecovers. I blasted those also and will be painteing them with Dupli-Color Cast Coat Aluminum paint. Looks like an awfully close match if you ask me, maybe a shade to dull but pretty close.