| Author | Message | ||
     M1combat |
I have looked at a few XB12's that have had their headers cleaned with sos pads and such, and they tend to have lost their gold color... How do I avoid this, and if I can't is there anything I can use to replace it? | ||
| Geofg |
That's a side effect of heating up the stainless steal. It should come back pretty quickly after riding around a bit. -Geof | ||
| Hardluckxb |
Ride the hell out of it!!! Those things should be purple! | ||
| Daves |
Let me ride it! Ride to the edge! I'll turn your pipes gold Dave Iowa HD/Buell (Buell Cycle Center) | ||
| M1combat |
Well, no, they should be gold after a good cleaning, just like when they are sitting on the showroom floor. The purple shows up after you heat them up a few times but can be polished off. It's just that during the polishing I have noticed that they turn silver just like the XB9 pipes. No offense to any XB9 guys, but I think the gold looks WAY better and I would like to know how to clean them in such a way so as to not remove the gold color. If that's not possible, how do I get the gold color back after I clean them? Here's my problem... The pipes were hot one day and I reached down to wipe a little dirt off my front fender. I touched the front curve with my glove and melted a little of my glove to it. It burned off mostly, I shut down the bike and waited for the pipes to cool down and then took a wet rag to them and removed most of what was left. Now, my pipes have a weird spot on them that doesn't look "naturally blued". I would like to polish that spot out and then let them "blue" but I don't want to polish off the gold color that they start out as because the purple to gold transition and the gold pipes in general mixed with the black and orange are what turns me on when I look at this bike. Anyone know how to clean them w/o removing the gold color? | ||
| M1combat |
Hey you had your chance Dave...  . | ||
| Bads1 |
M1 the gold will come back as soon as you ride it 15 min. the gold is not the true color of the pipe it returns as you ride and will get even darker and darker if you don't use a cleaner of some sort.Try Eagle 1 medal polish thats what I use or Flitz works great also. | ||
| Glitch |
I liked mine to stay the gold and blue and purple, so I just clean them with out abrasives (SOS pads). Just a rag and a good polish. I was using Mother's until Dana recommended Eagle 1. | ||
| M1combat |
???? So what does Buell do, run hot air through them until they turn that nice even gold color that you see on the showroom floor? I'm not talking about the blueing that comes from them getting hot and all the ones I have seen have NOT turned back to gold after being steel wooled, they just turn like any other silver looking pipe after that. Take a look at XB9 vs. XB12 pipes... XB9's are silver, XB12's are gold. If you clean the XB12 pipes with steel wool they turn silver like the XB9 pipes and then when they blue from heat they look like all the other pipes out there. When they blue from the original gold color they look way better. Hence the reason I want to know how to polish the pipes w/o loosing that original gold color. Am I making any sense to anyone but me? | ||
| Bads1 |
M1 get the Eagle one the stuff works great.Your pipe will be silver when your done but after a short ride BLAM!!! shinny gold again. | ||
| Boulderbiker |
When a company finishes building a bike, most of the major manufacturers anyway, they do a quick run in on it on a dyno. So the gold color comes quite quickly after warming up the engine. So thats why they're gold when you get it. The only time they are silver is right after they leave the assembly line. Go check Buell's site with the picture of the red 12R and the blue 9R. The pipes are silver cause that bike hasn't been run yet. | ||
| Glitch |
Looks gold to me...  | ||
| Azfirebolt |
M1, Greg here... You saw my pipes. they will not go back to that gold, or blue color. That is a coating on them. Blue is heated gold... My pipes had pits in them that appeared to be rust. Dealer told me to take a scotch brite pad to them. Worked, but turned the tops silver. Been that way for 2.5 Mos. now. Nothing can be done once you remove that coating. Looksbetter than the rust spots I had going though... | ||
| M1combat |
Well, I don't believe that they will turn back to gold like they come from the factory... I've seen too many pictures (and a few in person) of pipes that have been cleaned w/ scotch brite, sos pads or steel wool and that gold color never comes back. It just goes straight from silver to "blued" (or purple), and the blueing you get from the silver pipes isn't as nice looking as when they blue after starting from gold. Maybe I'll just have to deal with it once I clean them up... | ||
| Captainplanet |
Been there, done that. On my 9R, I cleaned and polished the pipes down to that nice shiny silver that stainless will get to. It only took a few days of riding to bring back the gold over the whole pipe. The blue comes back after the gold returns. | ||
| Fullpower |
blue purple gold. why not just wrap them? | ||
| Hardluckxb |
If you are so concerned about the color how 'bout Jet Hot Coating them? | ||
| Oconnor |
Yeah thats what I was thinking. A little ceramicoat and be good to go. If I ever Take my headers off, I am going bling bling ceramichrome... | ||
| Bads1 |
Because that would be silver or black.He wants gold. | ||
| Oconnor |
BAds1, I used to work at a place that did ceramicoat. You can get damn near any color you want. and yep, they have gold. Check places that restore patio furniture. They usually have the equipment but aren't in the race business and may have good prices and be local to wherever you are... | ||
| M1combat |
I like the blueing too though. I like the stock setup just as it is, I just don't want to ruin it. | ||
| Bads1 |
Oconner those colors you speak of will also not hold up for long term to what I was told from classic coatings Inc.These are questions I asked when I was customizing my last bike.The black,cermakrome(MCK) are the coatings they recomend for the application to what I gathered. M1 I have been applying Eagle 1 to my pipes for 4 yrs and they always go back to the gold you speak of.Infact the more you polish them you'll start to get a real shinny gold pipe and looks real awesome.But if you do nothing they will get darker and darker with age and heat and the only way you will get rid of that is to bring them in to a polisher or have them coated.Some guys prefer to let them go.I like to keep them looking nice.Your call I guess. | ||
| S320002 |
M1, Your pipes will turn "gold" again after you clean them and ride for a while. It may not be the exact shade of gold that you had from the factory. Also if you use steel wool rather than Scotchbrite the the gold color will return sooner and it will be slightly darker. | ||
| Bads1 |
M1 the only thing that was not said is if you wait and wait and put off cleaning them with some medal polish.They will get darker and darker until almost turd brown and you'll never get them cleaned up enough by hand.Then you'll have to take the header off and get it polished by machine to get a good appearance again. |
