Best (non-invasive) way to clean oxidation/rust?

[94szki]

Hi everyone,

What's the best way to clean our motorcycle spokes and other metal parts where oxidation/rust and surface corrosion have developed? My rear spokes have some slight rust buildup and pits and are an eyesore. The rear main drive also has a few spots of corrosion, and also the cover of the rear drum/brake.

It's a '94, not sure if the spokes were ever changed, but I wish they would have gone with stainless steel. Also, I've tried mothers aluminum polish on the brake drum cover but it didn't remove the corrosion. I think all it's capable of doing is removing slight oxidation.

Some things I've tried are:

SemiChrome polish
Mothers Aluminum polish

Both somewhat work, but are messy and require a lot of elbow grease. I am tempted to use sandpaper on the spokes, but I don't want to damage the surface of the spoke much. I don't remember how I cleaned the spokes of my front wheel, but I did so with the wheel off the bike. I believe I used semichrome and those blue shop towel that come in rolls. They cleaned up pretty well, but now I'm thinking about polishing up the rear wheel and I don't know how to take the wheel off the bike (and I'm also nervous to do so because of the drive shaft).

I would love to learn how to polish metal parts. I believe that gunsmiths/and jewelers use 'rouge polishing compound' and cotton wheels to polish small parts. Has anyone tried this on our aluminum parts to see if it will remove the corrosion? A small dremel with a cotton wheel comes to mind, but I've never tried this to see if it works.

Please chime in if you have any experience!

Thanks!

[Night Stalker]

Try your Mothers polish using a very fine steel wool. It's going to be messy no matter what you do. On the spokes some people use polish on a wide shoe lace. Wrapping the lace a couple of times around the spoke and pulling back and forth on the ends. Hope this works for you.

[Lechy]

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[hillsy]

Autosol is the oldest and probably the best.

I've also used the wadding that's impregnated with polish - that's pretty handy as you just pull off a piece and polish away (little mess)

You will have to do some work whatever you choose - there's no magic bullet to make everything tidy again without some effort / elbow grease.

[navigator]

Firstly, the corrosion on the rear drive and brake assembly are under the clear coat.
Those parts are aluminum, with a clear coat paint over them. The white corrosion is where the paint cracked and water got underneath.
Using metal polish on the clear coat will not work.
The only way to polish them now is very labor intensive.
You must first strip the clear off with paint stripper, then use 400 wet paper to remove the corrosion, then use 1000 grit wet paper to polish it, followed by your Mothers polish.

For the spokes, use some wide shoelaces soaked in Turtle Wax Chrome Polish that contains rust remover.