So I had some extra beers in the garage, and had the rear wheels off to get the tires re-balanced... Somehow, I ended up breaking out my polishing wheel.

I polished up rear brake calipers! Had been a while, but turned out great!

Before


During


After... including some thumb



After with the wheel on (which of course hides all my work )

 

nice

 

Definitely a nice touch. Did you drink some extra beers and polish your aluminum driveshaft too? Or was that someone else?

It's amazing how once you start polishing aluminum... you want to polish more and more of it. Great easy, cheap way to make something look fantastic.

 

Yeah the driveshaft is polished out too... Budlight is my liquid motivator LOL!

Yeah polishing is really addictive when you get a system to doing it effectively. I do not envy the guys still hand polishing their IROCS & plenums with Mothers.

 

looks killer man-love it!

 

that looks really good, nice polishing. What do the front calipers look like?

I contemplated doing the same thing when I removed the casting marks from my calipers, but I bought my brake setup used and they had too many deep knicks to sand out and polish.

 

Looks sharp!

 

Such an awesome detail my guy! If my brakes were worth looking at...I would do the same thing! Mine didn't even come with rear disks...I got stuck with drums! On the upgrade list though

 

Great things happen when there are a few extra beers around. Looks nice!

 

Agreed. Nice work.

 

Thanks guys! I love the polished look inside the black wheel, and it doesn't stick out so "in your face" as the red calipers would have.

I still need to re-polish the front calipers, and really detail the whole undercarraige, but time is something I haven't had a whole lot of.

Here is what the fronts look like...

 

You mentioned you had a system. What is it? Or is that classified
I may have more polishing in my neer future and wouldn't mind trying something more efficiant.

 

No classified secret here lol

I use a 8" sewn cotton wheel on my 10k rpm Makita angle grinder, with FORMAX black rouge. I clean the polishing residue with gasoline, and then use a quick hand polish with Mother's Billet polish. To top it all off any polished part gets waxed with Wheel Wax brand... wheel wax

I use the Formax black cause you don't have to use multiple stages of rouge to get excellent results. Very versatile, from raw aluminium to polished (calipers ) parts that just need clean up.

 

Looks great!

 

looks good brother!

 

Looks sweet!

Could I bother you to post some pics of the whole car? I love the blue highlights on the GFX.

 

I can see myself!!!..

 

that looks really good, nice polishing. What do the front calipers look like?

 

I haven't re-polished the front ones yet, but its on my to do list.

 

 

Wow. I can see why you head the COTM. Amazing car.

 

Thanks man! I think I head it cause i tried... and I'm on here way too much LOL!

 

I have an extra set of calipers I can send you how much to get mine like that?

 

Looks good!! Unfortunately I've never been lucky enough to own anything with disc brakes on the rear...lol.

 

To be honest I barely have time to play/work on my own, car and just bought another. I recommend investing the money you would pay someone to polish your stuff and buy a good wheel and practice away

Before I switched to the Baer brakes, I had drums on the rear, but I had the aluminum drums, and I polished those out too haha! I have a problem

 

Got the front calipers done today...

 

My god those look good under there!

 

Hey thanks man!

 

So did you sand everything before polishing or just use emery/tripoli/white? Ide like to polish all my brake calipers and suspension parts. But the thought of sanding all that would take a year to do.

What kind of polishing equipment did you use?

 

I bought these in 05 from Baer with a half azz polish, and polished them before I ever installed the Baer kit. I have removed the casting finish for polishing by using a Roloc grinding disc, then sanding disc or hand sanding on other cast finish projects... The Formax black is very easy stuff to use and if forgiving if you didn't sand enough... it will pull out a lot of imperfections.

 

Thanks, I'm going to look into this stuff. I've got extra aluminum suspension parts that aren't to oxidized so they should clean up good. Also thinking about a way to spin my driveshaft and axles to sand them.

this is what I want to polish for my car

 

Those C4 spindles and control arms will clean up easy with Formax. A big 8" wheel might be a little tough to get in some areas, so go grab a Harbor Freight die grinder and put a 3-4" cotton wheel on it, and use that for touch up.

I polished my driveshaft when I swapped to T56, and I didn't even sand it before...

 

Yep that is what I am looking for. The batwing and differential probably be challenging as well.

 

Is there any tutorial you used, or have your own tutorial... I read the one in the tech articles and didn't seem to be a universal tutorial, even though its great... anyway you can create a tutorial with some pictures? that would be amazing. Thanks either way. Your car looks great

 

I have an entire fride full of beer, Sam Adams, Yeingling, Corona and even some PBR, come to FL in the winter and you can polish until you fall off the stool. I am planning to do my drive-shaft and super charger again before I put them on, I need some motivation to get back on the 91. I should just tow it back to the shop and finish it in a few weeks but I promised the wife I would do this project at the house so my 14 year old could help. He is a chip off the old block he does some really good work, we are looking for an 89-92 T-top car for him right now. Do you use a 4 stick system? I start with the #3 and go up to the #5 then jewelers rouge to finish.

 

Here is the finished product, he did a great job for his age.

 

They look great! But, just a suggestion...you probably want him to get used to wearing safety glasses when using reciprocating power tools.

 

I think that was just a staged picture. He doesn't have enough black residue on him in that picture to actually be doing polishing at that time.

 

No he was doing touch up to spots, you are correct he does wear the safety glasses when on the wheel, I cannot believe I never ever noticed that. Thank you for pointing it out to the both of us, because I always wear them.

 

No I learned from trial and error. I grew up around semi-trucks and one of my dads buddies was big in the "show semi-truck" scene in So-Cal in the 90's, and I helped him often. I learned some of the tricks I use like gasoline to remove residue, that knowone would ever tell you to do. I might try and do a better job of showing how I do my polishing... one of these days.

Your beer sounds pretty good right now, but I hate how dirty you get, and it only really makes me happy if the money is great, or its on my own stuff
That is very cool that you have something to work on with your son, and he is interested in it. and putting out good work I hope my 8 month old little trouble maker love to hang and work on cars with his daddy too..

Braxton at 6months sitting in a 32 Ford we were working on

I don't use a stepped system with different rouges, I have tryed a couple cheapo Harbor Frieght/Home Depot kits and found no better results than using the Formax Black max bar, and spinning it at 8-10k on 8" cotton spiral sewn wheel. I'm sure there is better systems out there, but this is what I learned with, and have never had anyone complain with the results. I'll send you a PM in a minute.

 

I use the Porter Cable metal polish sticks and then rouge (green & red) depending how bad the piece is.

 

I can think of much worse things then a polishing addiction... looks good bro!

 

Yeah no doubt.... Google Krokodile... that is an addiction I'm damn happy I don't have. Zombies are cool and all, but not what I want to look like!

 

Oh my god, why did I look that up. Exposed bones due to rotting flesh caused by a drug.

 

 

Good enough. Ill end up trying it trial and error myself. Thanks though for listing the products you use.

 

They need to show cases of Krokodil in Health class to dissuade kids from drugs. Looks fairly effective.

 

Only polishing I have ever done was 2 TPI's. They are a pain in the butt removing all the coarse texture and casting marks. This is a 86 system that I never finished.

 

No crap!!! I can't believe those people are alive. There is a super nasty video on youtube... You'll have to find it on your own... make your buddies puke and stuff.

That looks pretty damn good! I have never tried a manifold... just seemed like to much of a PITA I was daily driving mine when I pulled it apart and powdered it gloss black... seemed like a better move. Still have to clean it all the time.

 

Well you get rookie of the year, that looks great