Fork cleaning/polishing or painting

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backlander

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I'm trying to save these forks, 44k miles on them but they sat outside for awhile in a salvage yard before I bought the bike. I've tried every cleaner I know of, aluminum foil, cleaner, polish and nothing will cut the stains or the slight pitting on the chrome. Anyone have any ideas ? I've considered etching and painting all but the 5.5 inches of travel portion of the tubes.
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I've tried that before on them, but I just tried it again and still not doing the job on these. Thanks for the idea !! I just tried PB blaster/ steel wool and naval jelly/steel wool, still not removing it.
 
I have no idea what paint would look right but a heavy coat should fill the pits and smooth / protect the surface. Be certain to neutralize the rust as much as possible.
 
What I see in the pics is of the upper fork....the hard chrome tube. If it was the lower, aluminuminum part of the fork, it woud polish out fine, but would still have some small divots/pits in it.
The upper tube is a whole different ball game. If there are pits on the chrome surface, I don't know of any way to fix that other than replacing the tube. I've heard of folks using epoxies to fill in the pits, and sanding it smooth, but not sure if that's a good way to go or not. That shaft slides thru the fork seals....any imperfections on the tube surface will wear the seal much quicker than it would normally.
Just my .002 :hi:
 
So my fork legs were quite bad, not as bad as yours, but there is hope, they are hard chromed, what they did with mine was first ground off enough chrome to get rid of the pits, they were then re chromed with additional material and then reground down to size. Yours are quite pitted, but you can get them off ebay in better condition. it is on the bottom of the leg that decides it's reuseability as it wears on one side. Go to a chromer or look up a specialist company that does this. In the states there must be thousands that do it.
 
Thanks Ian, there are far fewer chrome shops in the US now, government regulations by the EPA made it so stringent on them that most closed up shop. I've done a bit of research and found that I can buy new tubes for around 125.00 USD. Not going that route yet, still searching for alternatives. I found a huge fork list last night of interchangeable Japanese make bikes which is interesting since I would like to lengthen the front forks anyway to compensate for the recent neck rake on this build. Now I'm searching for a list of the lengths of those other bikes forks. Getting the right length is a complicated procedure in itself.
 
Polish em up with wet dry paper till they are functional (DONT CUT THA SEALS)then slap a set of Gaiters on to make em purty.
 
I'm with biker joe. I hit mine with a hand held honing stone. They aren't prettry anymore, but they hold oil and work fine. Gators would hide the scars but no one is looking!
 
I think that forks need to look good since they are so prominent on a motorcycle so I wouldn't fool with rusty ones. And the pits will sooner or later ruin the seal or at least leak. No question in my mind that I would change them.
 
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