webike4fun

Been playing around with some cleaning/polishing stuff. Still looking for "magic bullet" OK C/V experts, in your experience, what is the best products for:

1) Cleaning frames/preparing for polish
2) Chrome polish
3) Wax/Polish


AND MERRY X-MAS TOO!

55/Rad

I don't know if these are the best, but I get nice results with:

1. Simple Green 50/50 solution
2. Blue Magic
3. Meguiars Cleaner Wax

gomango

+1

...and Mother's products.

https://www.mothers.com/02_products/0...632_05664.html

55/Rad

I might add that for carbon parts, forks and frames, I use Plexus Plastic Cleaner/Polish. Great stuff.

dashuaigeh

1) Simple green is good, but it seems to be a bit toxic (and less "green" than advertised). I often just use dish soap/water, goo-gone, or WD-40 if I really need.
2) You're on your own here I'm stealing your answers to the chrome question
3) Usually any auto wax works well. I've had good results with turtle wax. As for polish, Meguiars Scratch-X/rubbing compound both do a swell job for me.

dedhed

I like the meguire's cleaner wax and mother's stuff.

Clean cotton rags, old tooth brushes, tooth pics & Q tips for lug work, and plenty of elbow grease

rootboy 

+1, and I recently used Flitz liquid on paint to restore a dulled, oxidized finish. Works good. Though the Meguires stuff works good too. Note, NOT regular blue Flitz metal polish in the tube, I'm talking the green liquid in a small black bottle. Supposed to have no abrasives in it.

Tazio Novolare

I treat it like auto detailing. For touch-up work, I use "Amrep Spray Cleaner Polish" which used to be sold under the Honda brand to Motorcyclists. For the full-monty: wash with dishsoap / clay bar / Klasse red / carnuba wax. Just be mindful of decals & pinstripes.

khatfull

Any combination of:

WD-40
Simple Green
Awesome cleaner (from Dollar Tree)
Dish soap
ScratchX 2.0
Nu Finish car polish (liquid)
Mother's Mag and Aluminum Polish
Blue Magic polish
Goo-Gone
Mineral spirits
Acetone
Gasoline

I've used all the above and probably others I'm not thinking of.

sailorbenjamin

Coke!

Mr. Embrey

1. Windex (see my sig) Also, bike lube helps remove the dark, dried or gummy crud (old lube/grease) that accumulates around around lubed areas like hubs and headsets.
2. Pro Honda metal polish and finish resorer (awesome ****)
3. Turtle Wax ICE synthetic sprat detailer

tmh657

If it's anodized and I can't use Mothers then Nevr-Dull. But be careful not to rub off any lettering, like on your Gran Compe brake calipers, etc. I buy it at the parts store, it's cheaper than Ace hardware by a couple of bucks.

rekmeyata

I have several classic cars, and a friend of mine has 18 classic cars, and we all use Meguire's products as does most other classic car owners. On bikes you have to be careful with using cleaner or rubbing compound products. Cleaner products use a fine grade of a rubbing compound, you can tell when you use the product applied with a white cloth (or dark cloth if white paint) the cloth will show the color of the paint...that's valuable paint being taken off! And on bikes the paint is nowhere near as thick as it is on car, so any paint you take off will get you closer to a dull faded paint look due to very little paint left. It's best to just clean the paint with a gentle car wash, or on steel bikes I like Finish Line Bike Wash because it contains rust inhibitors, do not use dish soap, some will leave a milky residue behind and some can scratch the paint. Then follow that up with Meguire's NXT Generation wax. IF you don't like the results after using the NXT then, and only then, use Meguire's Scratch X product, then reapply the NXT. Then once a year reapply the NXT, you should never have to use Scratch X again on that bike.

Never Dull is a great product for Aluminum. Once you polished the Al to your liking with Never Dull then apply Mequire's NXT to protect it. Of course commons sense should tell you not use either Never Dull or NXT on your rims sides or your brakes won't work good at all. On AL rims sides use heavy duty Scott Brite pad to take off the brake pad rubber, then use a non abrasive Scott Brite pad to give it added luster.

Nu Finish product is junk as is Blue Magic and Turtle wax; Mothers is arguably second best and is also used by a lot of classic car owners. I prefer Meguire's but Mothers is good too.

Chombi

Pledge Lemon Furniture Polish!
It's the traditional auto detailer's cleaner polish. I've used it on pretty much anything that needs a quick clening polishing like my motorcycles, helmets and my bicycles.
Great thing about pledge is it does not build up like some waxes.. and sprays on easy then wipes off and polishes quickly and does not harm any materials and finishes for all the years I have been using it.

Chombi

gridplan

+1. That's why I use Lemon Pledge on my bikes. Great stuff.

cycleheimer

I have had good luck with 3M cleaner wax. I have also used inexpensive Turtle Wax Polishing Compound (white paste) and Turtle Wax Rubbing Compound (red paste) with good results. I only use the rubbing compound on paint jobs that are in poor shape. The Awesome cleaner from the Dollar Tree, mentioned by Khatful, is a great deal for only $1. It is highly concentrated, and one bottle goes a long way when diluted to even an average strength. Big savings over Fantastik spray cleaner. I have also had good luck with Noxon for chrome and alloy. I usually use car wax, or cleaner wax, on chrome and alloy parts after I clean them.

rekmeyata

Actually the only thing Pledge is good for is furniture and interior plastic parts of a car. This stuff is very poor in durability compared to automotive wax, in fact the worst automotive wax is 10 times better the Pledge. And don't tell me auto detailer's use Pledge on automotive paint because I know many auto detailer's who detail normal cars to classic cars to even semi trucks and not one has ever use or will ever use Pledge or a another brand label of the same product on a car's paint job. What a bunch of BS.

There is one little fact about the use of Pledge that some people in the auto industry use it for, and that is they spray Pledge on the rear quarter panels of a car about to do a burnout on a drag strip because it makes the rubber easier to clean off afterwords. But the reason it's easier to come off is because the first washing takes the Pledge off and off comes the rubber that's why Pledge is not durable enough to be used on a car or a bike for everyday use and protection, nor does it have good enough UV protection for paint. Like I said earlier it works good on plastic interiors of cars, but again an interior is not exposed to rain and the elements.

Chombi

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you.
Here's my 1995 Honda VFR......

..........that is ridden at least a couple of times a week and only got washed a number of times you can count on the fingers of your hand and had been cleaned with mostly just Lemon Pledge and sometimes Honda cleaner polish spray (which actually seems to be very similar to Lemon Pledge) the whole 15 years i have owned it and it shines just as nicely as the day I bought it. My experience had been that Pledge actually keeps finish damaging stuff like bug guts dirt and grit from sticking to the fairng and exposed parts of the bike just as good as any wax would have done and not build up and yellow over time. This had been discussed many times in the motorcycle website I am a member of for many years and many agree that Pledge had kept their bikes looking new after years of use without any problems. Here are my helmets with some that dates from way back in the 80's., all just maintained with cleaning and polishing with Pledge:







These were/are used in all conditions on the road. the older ones are "retired" becuase the foam padding inside had deteriorated from use/age. Funny thing is, the older helmets only have deterioration in the interior materials where I cannot use Pledge, but all the exterior materials and finishes on all the helmets are all close to mint condition. No fading, cracks or yellowing, even the sheilds are still all clear. Only helmet with any exterior deterioration is the BMW system 2 helmet that I mistakenly used Windex on it's shield that caused a bit of light fogging, because of the ammonia in the Windex. Others had only pledge used on them and they look brand new and clear.
My 25+ year old PSV and Vitus Carbone that I regularly post pictures of also owes their minty fresh looks to the use of Lemon Pledge.

Chombi

rekmeyata

You can use whatever you want. I know people some years ago swore about using ArmorAll on their cars because it shined like crazy with a wet look. You know what, it did look great!...until you drove it then every particle of dust, every grain of dirt, every bug on earth stuck to it like glue. So does Pledge work for make a paint job shine? Sure, but it does nothing for UV protection for the paint to prevent the paint from fading. The only protection you have on your paint is the clear coat, your doing nothing by using pledge to enforce that protection. And one of the ingredients in Pledge is OIL, remember the ArmorAll thing I mentioned above, it's the oil that makes it shine with wet look. With Pledge the oil factor is very low so crap won't stick to the finish but's it's enough to make it look very shiny.

BUT like I said earlier Pledge does make plastic parts look good and your MC is mostly plastic, and most MC's don't see the kind of road miles a car sees nor the kind of weather so your not really hurting your MC by using it, but you could protect it better with a good Auto Wax. Face it, the only real reason you use Pledge is the ease of application. Even Corvettes, which a friend of mine is a avid Corvette owner (owns 5 of them) and belongs to a Corvette club, would never use Pledge on any of his Vettes and nor does any of the clubs members, and those are plastic (fiberglass) cars because of the lack of UV protection. This is the guy I wrote about in other posts here that has 18 classic cars.

It's your choice obviously, but if you really want to protect the paint then use a real wax not furniture polish. I've been in the classic car arena for too many years to know all the tricks of what works and what doesn't, and Pledge doesn't work. By the way, even Jay Leno doesn't use Pledge on any of his cars and I know this for a fact.

khatfull

Yeah it is...I've been cleaning up RDs for the past couple of days and my hands show it. I like to use the Awesome full strength for things like jockey wheels and other non-aluminum bits. Why wait for something milder to work But it will get to your hands after a while. If you have sensitive skin be very careful.

One thing I like Awesome for a whole ton...chains. Scrub off the big schmutz by hand, then a 1:2 Awesome:water mix into the ultrasonic, heat on, and about 4-5 480 second runs. Chains don't stand a chance. Of course, this removes ALL lube so you have to relube the chains very well after this treatment.

Another thing I did on the latest project was use WD-40 and a very soft toothbrush around all the lugs, especially bottom bracket. I really like how that worked.

Chombi

Say what you will, but the aluminum, SS and steel parts on my bike sure looks really good with just the use of plain ole Lemon Pledge Just take a look at that (Staintune muffler on it, the extruded frame spars and side plates too). By the way, Pledge does have a bit of silicone in it. Don't know if the silicone keeps the bad stuff from sticking on my bikes but you can look up the ingredients in the web and it is there, so it's not as simple as just "oil" that you noted.
By the way, Jay's a rich and smart guy, but I think he can also be wrong sometimes like anybody else.
Chombi

rekmeyata

Trust me Jay Leno and a whole slew of other classic car collectors including those that show their cars in concourse car shows do not use Pledge, and their not wrong. For you to say that just shows how full of yourself you are, which I'm sure your not just perhaps ignorant of the real world of classic cars and motorcycles. By the way I failed to mention, Jay Leno has an extensive collection of MC's and doesn't use Pledge on those either. Most people don't realize he's into MC's as well.

I have heard that some unpainted TI owners use Pledge because of the oil... silicone, makes the TI shine, but with unpainted TI their not concerned with UV protection, they want a glossy shine.

cycleheimer

Yep, I usually put the chains in a plastic bag, after I clean them, and then douse them inside the bag with motor oil. I will usually let them sit for a couple of days, or more if I get busy with other things.

gridplan

I suppose if I spent as much on bikes as Jay does on cars, I might care what he uses to protect his investment. But I don't; not by a country mile. I know some old-timers on the CR list who have been using Pledge for years. That's where I learned of it. It works well. As for U/V protection, do your bikes spend a lot of time out in the sun? Mine don't. I have a couple dozen, some never ridden, that spend their time in a darkened basement. The ones that do get ridden are in rotation. Each isn't out in the sunlight long enough for U/V protection you're talking about to make a whit of difference. As for ArmorAll, I don't know of anyone on the CR list whose opinion I respect who ever thought that was good for rubber.

knewbike

You are giving good advice. I paint cars for a living. Anything with silicone is not aloud anywhere in a bodyshop. It is the #1 reason for fisheyes when painting. And is hard to take off when cleaning. I treat bikes just like a car. Yes the paint is thinner. Minute scratches can be rubbed out though. I am partial to 3M products when it comes to compounding and glazing. There seems to be less residue than Meguires IMO. Mostly do my bikes by hand, though I will take a wheel to it the 1st time around. As a painter I never wax if there is a clear coat, but have nothing against it on single stage lacquer and polyurethanes to keep the color longer.