Polishing Tunnel

[H2SNOW]

tunnels bwah ha ha

try polishing both tanks a herd bumper and all the Chrome on my KW ....tunnel LOL

 

[Top Notch]

H2, do you polish the bumper yourself or have somebody do it? If somebody does it for you what do they charge to do it?

 

[H2SNOW]

H2, do you polish the bumper yourself or have somebody do it? If somebody does it for you what do they charge to do it?

I do it all myself ...........

heres a tip

use mineral spirits with a terry cloth first to get it wet and activate ..then I swear by Herd polish ...rub till it comes off then buff with new cloth ....the best cloth is that shop stuff that is blue on a roll in a dispenser ..I get it from the Dry cleaners after it has been used for a year or soo ...it is about a 100 foot roll and then I just cut off pieces

herd is the best because of the little effort from black to shine ...and trust me I have used every one on the shelf.....all others suck because when they dry after you get em to black they are extremely difficult to clean up to a shine


I use professional buffing wheels and those different colored bars for my tanks ......takes about 2 days

if I was gonna get it done ..I hear that its about 15 hun ...

 

[brahm]

how big of a dick move would it be, if the next time my buddy left his sled on my trailer I polished like a 2x2 square thus making him feel the need to polish the rest hahaha.

 

[Flamedcummins]

how big of a dick move would it be, if the next time my buddy left his sled on my trailer I polished like a 2x2 square thus making him feel the need to polish the rest hahaha.

THats what happened to me went to see my buddies new m1000 and he was polishing it so i did a small spot...waited a month or so and couldnt take it anymore

 

[joshkoltes]

same

how big of a dick move would it be, if the next time my buddy left his sled on my trailer I polished like a 2x2 square thus making him feel the need to polish the rest hahaha.

my bud did that to me, one big 6x6 ish spot on my diamond plate trailer nose right where i can see it in my mirror. and one 6x6 spot on the back of my boat! man if i did that whole boat, oh my it would be sweet.

 

[jimmy buffet]

how big of a dick move would it be, if the next time my buddy left his sled on my trailer I polished like a 2x2 square thus making him feel the need to polish the rest hahaha.

i tried to polish my tunnel and have a 8 by 8 in spot on it.....now 2 years later and still there....not that bad but you still see it....

 

[89sandman]

sweet avaitar jimmy buffet, if thats your look you'll be doing your currently quite often

 

[somefear]

Well, I went ahead and did mine. It turned out pretty SWEET, but let me tell you.....there is no easy way to get this job done. You need lots and lots of hours, elbow grease and the right polish. I used the bars and a buffing wheel first, followed by Mothers aluminum polish and a orbital sander, then hand buffing for the last few coats. I used a tooth brush for the sharp edges on the running boards with polish for a little trick that works. You have to keep repeating the procedure until the desired mirror finish is achieved. I could have kept going, but I figured I had about 20 hours into it and I was getting tired of seeing my reflection!!

My hubby now wants his 2010 M8 done, so we'll see. I will post pics if I do.....I wonder if I can win an award for the only woman on the Snowest site to polish a tunnel???

 

[git r done]

When I polish my tunnel it become smeary where there is scratches and is a buffing wheel similar to a powerball? Nice job on the tunnel and could you post a few more tips

 

[klubbo]

powerball got chewed up in the running boards...oh well...time for more!!

 

[wyoracer]

I used to polish the tunnels and anything else that was bare aluminum on all my hillclimb race sleds...it just got to be to much work when we would got to a race that was more mud than snow, and the tunnel would just get completely scratched to hell. I would spend almost 8-10 hours every week just re-polishing the tunnel so it would look perfect before the next hillclimb. I sure did get alot of complements about it though.

I would always use an S.O.S. pad to begin the polishing process, and then move to Mothers. To get a good finish polish I would use this stuff called Blue Magic, and to top it all off put about two coats of Meguiars Carnauba Car wax. No grinders, buffers, sanders. Just good ol' elbow grease.

 

[Midwest_Cat]

ok, so i've been debating weather or not to do my tunnel...i did all the under the hood parts but i noticed there were some very very very very fine scratches left in the metal when i was done. you could only see them when it was in the garage. outdoors you dont notice.

what i used was a wet sand (water + soap in spray bottle), 1000 grit, 2000 grit, then mothers on power ball. prolly spent 10-ish hrs on all the under the hood stuff.

i really like the idea of using the polishing bars in lieu of sanding...so i'm going to try the polishing bars + mothers/power ball and see if there is a difference.

heres the under the hood bling!

 

[Monty]

Looks good Midwest_Cat. Heres mine I used the white bar then the red bar and
mothers billet by hand.

 

[kennethbenson]

I didnt realize there were so many of us.......... I just got done with my exhaust heat shield and stripped everything off my skid and did the rails, the tunnel isnt so bad after you complete that chore.

Check out epicsleds.com for polished aluminum side vents!!! or pm me.

 

[Midwest_Cat]

Looks good Midwest_Cat.

Thanks <thumbs up>

BTW - your tunnel looks amazing. definatly looking forward to getting the mirror.

How many buffing wheels/disks/pads did you use for each bar? I know with my truck i go through 10 or so pads when polishing. and just to clarify, you didnt wet sand or dry sand, or use anything other than the bars, correct?

 

[Snoplug]

Very Nice

I like what you have all done!

Any idea on how to get the dull black tunnel on this years summit x to shine?

 

[Surly1]

I did my tunnel (and anything bare aluminum last year). Started with mothers and elbow grease, moved to mothers and powerball, decided my time is worth more money than that. So went and bought a buffer and went from there.

I don't have pics right now, but here's the process I went thru:

Wet Sand
- 400 Grit to get the big scratches and gouges out
- moved to 600 after that
- then went to 800

I was comtemplating going to 1000 then 2000 (I have all the paper from my body work days), but decided to try and see if the polishing compund and spiral sewn buff would take out the 800 grit scratches. Using Tripoli and a sewn buff did just that, took all the marks from the 800 grit right out. The polishing process with Tripoli prob would have been faster if I went to 1000 then 2000, but I feel it is 6 of one half dozen of the other as far as time went.

From there wash everything really good, you want to get any left over Tripoli compound off the aluminum before the next step.

For the next step (possibly final, depending on how good you want it) use a loose section buff, and White Rouge. This will bring the shine (and remove any fine scratches from the Tripoli) to were you want it (looking like a mirror). For this step, you can go as far as you want, the more you go the more it will shine.

Wash really good again, get all the Rouge off the aluminum again.

You can be done now, if you want. But your already there, so why not a little more.

Replace the buff with another loose section buff (a new one), and go to a Jewlers Rouge, this will bring even more shine out. Once again, go til you are happy with the results.

Wash again, and rock and roll.

I was comtemplating on using a good wax to protect it, but then thought I would see how it "weathered" the winter. Amazingly if you do this process in fills in the pores of the aluminum (that is how you get the polished look), and cleans up the rough surface. Water beads right off it, just as if it were waxed. The other kind of nice factor, is that I noticed less snow build up on the tunnel during riding. And the end of the season (1500 miles), it still ooks good (minus the scratches from boots, the trees, etc). I will touch it up again in a few weeks, and it should look like new again for another season. If you are interested in doing this, go to eastwood.com and you can buy all the stuff necessary (compound, buffs, etc).

 

[Monty]

Thanks <thumbs up>

BTW - your tunnel looks amazing. definatly looking forward to getting the mirror.

How many buffing wheels/disks/pads did you use for each bar? I know with my truck i go through 10 or so pads when polishing. and just to clarify, you didnt wet sand or dry sand, or use anything other than the bars, correct?

Correct no sandpaper, just a 2.5 inch buffing wheel on 1/4 inch air die grinder is what worked best for me. White bar first then red on a 4 inch wheel, only went through 2 wheels.

 

[roughrider99]

tunnels bwah ha ha

try polishing both tanks a herd bumper and all the Chrome on my KW ....tunnel LOL

1500? wow there is a guy up here that polishs trucks on weekends i heard he charges about 2-300 bucks and he polishes bumpers, stacks, air cleaners, tanks and maybe wheels to.