• Welcome to the Checkmate Community Forums forums.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions, articles and access to our other FREE features.
    By joining our free community you will be able to:

    » Interact with over 10,000 Checkmate Fanatics from around the world!
    » Post topics and messages
    » Post and view photos
    » Communicate privately with other members
    » Access our extensive gallery of old Checkmate brochures located in our Media Gallery
    » Browse the various pictures in our Checkmate photo gallery

    Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact support by clicking here or by using the"contact us" link at the bottom of the page.

Aluminum Fender Clean Up

Blue Mist '97

Blue Mist '97

Active member
Messing around today with not too much to do, other than having the high pressure fuel pump replaced on my Etec (on my wood boat), so I decided to pass the time cleaning and polishing the aluminum fenders and step plates on my trailer. They really didn’t look that bad to begin with, or so I thought.

Here are a couple of before pics and then some after pics. I was surprised to see just how much oxidation came off.

Oxidation and you can barely see the reflection of the bottle.
 

Attachments

  • BEFORE1.jpg
    BEFORE1.jpg
    43.7 KB · Views: 33
  • BEFORE.jpg
    BEFORE.jpg
    41.1 KB · Views: 34
After pics. Bottle is much clearer now.
 

Attachments

  • 20150602_131916.jpg
    20150602_131916.jpg
    96.5 KB · Views: 34
  • 20150602_140619.jpg
    20150602_140619.jpg
    100.9 KB · Views: 31
wow those look great. I was thinking of doing the same to mine. What did you use to get them like that? Obviously the purple polish but what polisher? i was thinking of getting one of the Mothers polisher kits for a drill.
 
Diamond Plate will tear up those mothers polishing balls or any foam pad. Wool pad will work better, or cloth polishing discs in a drill.

Best metal polish I have found is from www.lizardspit.com that I bought at a semi show years ago. Busch's metal polish is close second. I need to order more because the eagle one, mothers, blue magic, and a couple others don't even come close without 4X the amount of time.

With diamond plate, to quickly remove the grey polish residue and buff to a shine, dump plain white flour on the surface, grab a couple small square pieces of junk carpet (or the little sample pieces from home depot work perfectly too) and work the flour across the surface with the fuzzy side of the carpet. Best way to get the grey residue out from all the little edges and surfaces of diamond plate.

Sounds funky but it works great.
 
I'll have to give that a try. I've got some left over carpet from when i had some installed a while back.
 
diesel30 said:
wow those look great. I was thinking of doing the same to mine. What did you use to get them like that? Obviously the purple polish but what polisher? i was thinking of getting one of the Mothers polisher kits for a drill.
Click to expand...

Did mine by hand. With the stuff below it wasn't that hard. Took about an hour per side. I did approx. 2 ft. sections.

Happened onto this video somehow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpIzp5ftl78 from California Customs and decided to give it a try.

http://www.californiacustom.com/ourproducts.html Cost was $14 each + shipping.

Aluminum Deoxidizer (Step 1) and the Purple Metal Polish (Step 2).

Put the deoxidizer on a rag and cleaned them. Then like GF said, I used a 3x3 piece (actually several) of leftover bunk carpet to work the polish in. Then a soft towel to wipe away the gray/black residue. (Hint: Have a couple of throw away towels for this as they will turn very black.) The more you wipe with the towels the shinier the fenders get.

I was thinking of trying it on my aluminum windshield frame to see what happens. My only concern is that the top of the windshield frame will blind you when the sun hits it just right, so I don't know how much worse it would be.

Gimme Fuel said:
Diamond Plate will tear up those mothers polishing balls or any foam pad. Wool pad will work better, or cloth polishing discs in a drill.

Best metal polish I have found is from www.lizardspit.com that I bought at a semi show years ago. Busch's metal polish is close second. I need to order more because the eagle one, mothers, blue magic, and a couple others don't even come close without 4X the amount of time.

With diamond plate, to quickly remove the grey polish residue and buff to a shine, dump plain white flour on the surface, grab a couple small square pieces of junk carpet (or the little sample pieces from home depot work perfectly too) and work the flour across the surface with the fuzzy side of the carpet. Best way to get the grey residue out from all the little edges and surfaces of diamond plate.

Sounds funky but it works great.
Click to expand...

Never heard of using flour for this. Does it make removal of residue easier or faster than with a towel? For me, the most time consuming thing was cleaning off the residue and bringing on the shine. If flour helps that part, I will certainly try it next time.
 
Nice thread and Betty Crocker cleaning class GF. I will get the wife on our trailer when I get it back from Kunkels. I just know Debbie can get the the fenders polished better than I ever could lol.
 
Problem Child said:
Nice thread and Betty Crocker cleaning class GF. I will get the wife on our trailer when I get it back from Kunkels. I just know Debbie can get the the fenders polished better than I ever could lol.
Click to expand...
You are a better (and braver) man than I. I know better than to ask my wife to do something like that. She might break a nail or something serious like that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top