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Chromed or polished?

Longshot

Tuned and Synch'ed
Joined
Feb 8, 2021
Messages
83
Location
Stl
As far as I can tell the stock header down pipe coming off the head of the 1400 series is polished, not chromed, correct? I'm talking about the pipes bolted to the heads that turn blue.
I can't seem to find a definite answer going through some of my searches.
 
Got it! Thanks Todd!
Has anybody had the chrome removed and polished them?
I would want to have the engine tuned properly first of course, but I wonder if being able to polish them regularly would be a benefit cosmetically
 
Hmm...good point. I'm thinking stainless being polished. oh well...it's a slow day 😄 raining and cold outside, I guess I can't learn if I dont ask🤪
 
Stainless has virtues for sure , but presently it's cheaper to buy jewelry . It blues nicely on exhaust
pipes , but it's kinda labour intensive to keep it in a shiny polished state . Peter
 
Stainless has virtues for sure , but presently it's cheaper to buy jewelry . It blues nicely on exhaust
pipes , but it's kinda labour intensive to keep it in a shiny polished state . Peter


Not always blue! That takes time and neglect.

My Centauro pipes are precisely that, polished stainless steel.

Yearly I remove them and they visit my big power buffing wheel, where they turn bright silver like nickle-chromed pipes.

Then when running they turn a delicious gold color which with a simple microfiber cloth and some quality metal polish, I can keep them looking that beautiful gold during the whole riding season.

This is a photo before I hand polish back the rich, lustrous gold color which darkens and dulls from running and hand prints, water, road spray, etc. Takes me about 5 minutes a side to shine them right back up like a new wedding ring. 😆

78FF7743 C48C 4536 93D4 352CCA26A301
 
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Mine are blued/golden pretty bad. I suppose my only option will be to have them rechromed after I am tuned. I know they will still blue some, but I just can't see them going to get near as bad as they are now
 
Mine were very bad when I received the bike from the dealer in Nevada. 0-0-0-0 steel wool and Autosol metal polish, followed by my buffing wheel, brought them right back to like new condition. Took a few hours buffing out, but it can be done.
 
Mine were very bad when I received the bike from the dealer in Nevada. 0-0-0-0 steel wool and Autosol metal polish, followed by my buffing wheel, brought them right back to like new condition. Took a few hours buffing out, but it can be done.

Was that on the chromed pipes?
 
No, the stainless pipes on the Centauro. They turn gold after getting really hot.

Have you thought about ceramic coating? I did a post on my Stelvio exhaust with Jet Hot Coatings. They offer a chrome like coating and lots of other finishes too but I picked satin black and I never regretted it. They did fantastic work.

It also RADICALLY lowered the heat coming off of the pipes!

 
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Mine are blued/golden pretty bad. I suppose my only option will be to have them rechromed after I am tuned. I know they will still blue some, but I just can't see them going to get near as bad as they are now
I bought my Eldo as a demo model, pipes were horribly blued. I used a cleaner called Blue Job. You have to use it with a power tool, using it by hand didn't accomplish anything. If you have one of those multi-tools, with a triangular pad for sandpaper, that'll do the trick. Just follow the instructions for the Blue Job, use the included cloth with the velcro pad on the multi-tool. Polish spatters everywhere, you may want to try to cover as much of anything within spitting distance of your work area, to minimize cleanup.

After polishing mine once, they stayed fairly shiny, haven't had a need to polish them again in the almost 6 years I've owned it, and that's with the stock tuning.
 
No, the stainless pipes on the Centauro. They turn gold after getting really hot.

Have you thought about ceramic coating? I did a post on my Stelvio exhaust with Jet Hot Coatings. They offer a chrome like coating and lots of other finishes too but I picked satin black and I never regretted it. They did fantastic work.

It also RADICALLY lowered the heat coming off of the pipes!

I have not thought about ceramic but if the results look good I'm not opposed to it. I assume with ceramic there will be no blueing?
 
I bought my Eldo as a demo model, pipes were horribly blued. I used a cleaner called Blue Job. You have to use it with a power tool, using it by hand didn't accomplish anything. If you have one of those multi-tools, with a triangular pad for sandpaper, that'll do the trick. Just follow the instructions for the Blue Job, use the included cloth with the velcro pad on the multi-tool. Polish spatters everywhere, you may want to try to cover as much of anything within spitting distance of your work area, to minimize cleanup.

After polishing mine once, they stayed fairly shiny, haven't had a need to polish them again in the almost 6 years I've owned it, and that's with the stock tuning.
So then the bluing can be polished out of chrome to a certain extent. Good to know👍🏻 I'm tempted to try it. I guess the best option would be to remove the pipe when doing it
 
So then the bluing can be polished out of chrome to a certain extent. Good to know👍🏻 I'm tempted to try it. I guess the best option would be to remove the pipe when doing it

Yes, it can. I have tried literally dozens of metal polishes, and the best one I have found by far is this one from Germany. It's called AUTOSOL and it's an excellent product and I swear by it.

Your other friend will be 0000 steel wool. That is quadruple-ought steel wool. You can buy it at Home Depot or Lowes.


Make sure it is 0000 steel wool or you will damage your metal pipe finish!

Final polishing should be done with a microfiber cloth.




TempImageo1LHkt
 
I personally would not spend any time or energy stripping or re-coating the stock headers. Polishing them is fine, but anything else would be a waste of time and money. Mine ended up with a large crack in the outer decorative layer from thermal expansion and poor steel. It's the same brittle steel that results in the crossover splits we have all seen, which are part of the headers after all. I would get the GTM headers and work from there if I wanted to experiment with ceramics and such.

Dave
 
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