# Cast alloy cleaning



## jas11n

Any ideas as to how to go about cleaning the rather tarnished cast alloy on my rocker cover and inlet manifold guys?
It's a kind of textured finish, I don't really want to go the route of either painting, powder coating or high gloss polishing it. I'd much rather prefer to keep it an original finish.
So far I've tried solvol metal polish and also AG metal polish, but to be honest they were about as good as a poke in the eye when trying to get it back to an nice factory fresh look.
It's not so much thats it dirty, but seems to be stained. I originally thought it may have had a coating on it, but it seems to be bare alloy.
These pics below aren't brilliant as they were taken last year on my old 3.1mp camera. I'll take a few more with my current camera tomorrow (erm I mean today, nightshift fools with your head  )

Any help would be excellent :thumb:
TIA
Jas..


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## MarkE

Beadblasting?


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## jas11n

MarkE said:


> Beadblasting?


Yeah, that woud work but would also mean removal. Nightmare job especially the inlet manifold.
Was thinking of a heavy duty degreaser/cleaner?
Have tried Gunk and AG engine cleaner but they don't make a difference really, apart from cleaning any dirt off.
Thinking out load, maybe a strong oven cleaner or one of those oxyclean products maybe? Time for the missus to get mad with me again I think :lol:
[puts on mad professor coat and goes off to try]

Jas..


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## gti mad man

few wyas
1)remove and paint coat sorted
2)remove polish chrome
3)could try fine scuff pad
4)live with it not much you cna do 

paitn prob bets option?


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## Refined Reflections

Acid wheel cleaner and wire wool, wear rubber gloves while doing it!!

Wash off well then apply some wheel wax to protect it.

Failing that removal, beadblasting and clear coat.


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## GlynRS2

Jas,
As an RS2 owner I know where you are coming from.
The bottom line if you want it to look factory fresh is that you have to remove both the inlet manifold and the rocker cover. As you know this is a major strip down and several hours of labour where you have to know what you are doing. The best finish I believe would be to blast the alloy with aluminium oxide powder - not only will this clean the manifold, but some of the aluminium oxide will coat the manifold, leaving it looking amazing. Unfortunatelly you can't fit a 5 cyl inlet manifold & rocker cover in a DIY blasting cabinet as they are too long! However, a materials blasting company would probably only want about £25 to do it. The alternative would be to be powder coat silver - this won't look OE, but a very nice finish. Dean (JubJub on S2 Forum did this with his RS2:


































I have not done this for the same reasons you don't want to consider it. What I have done is use a small wire brush together (you van buy a pack of 3 of these in Halfords) first of all with AG Engine & Machine Cleaner and then AG Metal Polish. Using wire wool to the bits you can't get to. This leaves the alloy ever so slightly shiny looking, but this will dull back over a day or two. Then when I wash the car I mist some GT85 or WD40 onto a cloth and give it a quick wipe over.
This is as good as I can get mine:










If you discover any miracle cleaning technique, let me know:thumb:


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## CK888

^^^Those parts looks terrific!


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## L200 Steve

Got to agree with Shooter on this one.

Apart from stripping off the old parts and blasting, then chemically with a wheel cleaner (Meguiar's Hot Rims:thumb: ) is really the only option.

Brillo pads / autosol tend to only clean the surface, and not the pits of the profile.

It'll be time consuiming and take a lot of care, but you can get a good result with the wheel cleaner and a fine brush on these parts. If it's similar to the air pipes on Audi TT's, then this method works. Just use a lot of water to flush off with.










For what its worth, I'm sure that the bits on this TT were aluminium thermal arc metal sprayed, to acheive the finish. This stuff is notorious for being absorbent, and hence looks grubby quickly.


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## GlynRS2

Steve, 
The parts on the S2/RS2 are essentially the same finish as on the TT. They are just a bit older and generally tend to be grubier.


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## Alex L

excellent thread, been wondering about this for ages.:thumb:


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## m500dpp

not tried it but some of their other stuff is very good.....have a punt around their site

http://www.frost.co.uk/item_Detail....oductName=Frost Ali-Clean (1 Litre)&frostCat=.


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## fjs

Alloy corrodes readily, especially with July's hot weather.. Apart from all the suggested surface treatments. you could apply multipurpose grease to an area, wait a day after running the car, and see what it looks like. If the corrosion is superficial it will look much better. You will not get a concours shiny look, but it can work. Whatever you do, you will need to coat the cleaned alloy to prevent recurrence with sonus acrylic wax or simlar.


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## Naddy37

Alex L said:


> excellent thread, been wondering about this for ages.:thumb:


^^ what he said. I need to clean the block on the Micra as it's gone the same way...


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## vsideboy

I think alot of cars have some parts that are the same as this. My celicas got alot of this kind of surface. I was tempted to attempt to sand/grind/polish my parts so they are shiny rather than pitted but not had time to think about it much lately.


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## ThatBloke

Try Brillo first because it's cheap & easy....


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## [email protected]

http://www.team.net/sol/tech/clean_al.html

Found this page if the info is any good, it lists several cleaning agents and their uses


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## beaniegti

Just to add to this. 

The inlet manifold on my golf 16v was looking a bit grimey so i set about it with some engine degreaser and a stiff brush (was actually a shoe brush from wilko's with a few brass strands in!!). After a bit of effort it looked great but since then it has become prone to surface corrosion-in fact the same has happened to a few alloy components under the bonnet including the gearbox.

The only reason i can think of is that these alloy parts must have some form of protective finish/treatment to them despite looking like raw metal-so go easy on these parts or go and do what i will now have to do and get them blasted and re-finished properly


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## Dieselman

Aluminium cleaner should bring that up to it's proper colour and remove the oxydisation.
Protect afterwards to ensure it doesn't corrode again.


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## Petrol

Good thread :thumb: I will be starting the restoration on my 10 year old Nissan 200 SX in the spring and have been wondering about how to clean up alloy components. I will be watching this thread with great interest. I would have thought that alloy components are treated to prevent corrosion though – does anyone know if manufacturers treat bare alloy with a protective coating?


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## fjs

Some manufacturers coat some components with acrylic wax. VAG used to be good at this. Ford do not seem to bother.


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## Timmo

when i cleaned up my old inlet of the mi16 i had lying around i used a small sprk plug wire brush and muc off / wheel cleaner, took a bit of effort but came up a treat! going to havea crack at the engine bay inm the car sson as the 'dirt makes it faster' look is wearing a bit thin now!


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## jas11n

Well I found a solution to my particualr problem. The manifold and rocker cover have come up like brand new. Am chuffed to bit's at myself too  
I tried all sorts of stuff, oven cleaner, cilit bang, vanish oxy clean and although it sounds silly, someone told me to try toothpaste.
I did too, after reading on here about peanut butter on bumpers I thought why not. Didn't do anything to clean the alloy but at least it had a nice fresh breath  .
As said in my original post, removal wasn't on the cards, too much of a hassle.
Also harsh abrasives were out of the question as I wanted it to remain totally as it came from the factory.
Answer? a handheld steam cleaner my mum suggested. Fill up with water, let it warm up and away I went. I used a very fine nozzle and made sure I didn't spray bucket loads into any electical equipment.
The water/steam is at about 170 degrees fahrenheit according to the manual.
Worked like a charm.
Can't find the pictures I took over the Christmas break, so will take some more today and post them up.

Thanks for the suggestions.
Jas..


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## dirk

Hi mate try virosol the ally was very ,very dirty on my impreza ,virosol is a citrius cleaner ,worked well for me


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## [email protected]

dirk said:


> Hi mate try virosol the ally was very ,very dirty on my impreza ,virosol is a citrius cleaner ,worked well for me
> View attachment 2137


Dirk, this stuff? coz i could do with a good degreaser

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/5-Litre-Viros...ryZ11702QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


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