Scruffy Aluminum Intake

napa has a house brand wheel cleaner works great on cast part but be careful it will eat the skin off the bone

 

If you just want the original cast finish, Westley's Bleche White and a toothbrush has worked for me. Got it really nice, it still had the nornal oxidation of cast aluminum, so it looked just like new. Rinse it real good with water and it will take all of the cleaner off. Sometimes you have to do it twice, but it doesn't stain it, and it looks like the original finish.

Polishing the casting to a mirror shine like the beautiful one of overkillphil's is another matter. Thats a work of art, it would almost be a shame to put that on a car and get it dirty.

 

its made by ZEP its called... big z tractor trailer wash.... we buy it in a gallon container and it is powerfull stuff. hope this helps, george

 

My flea market find.



After 20 minutes in the bead blaster.



After 20 minutes in the powder coat oven.

 

easyoff oven cleaner, let sit for a bit and pressure wash.. repeat as needed and dont let the oven cleaner sit on it to long, it can eat it up.

 

x2 it does work used it for years

 

excuse the fact its a vw part...this is a before and after that was beadblasted

before



after

 

Lotsa good ideas here.

Unless you want polished or brushed, I recommend you have it powder coated.

As noted, polished stays pretty clean and not too bad to clean up if most areas are accessible.

Brushed, once it takes a stain, that's pretty much it, except for removing it and going through the whole deal once again.

The powder coat guy will appreciate it if you take a new intake in that's not been run.
Makes life easier for him.

Regardless, as long as the grease etc. is cleaned off, he'll blast it anyway and also use a chemical cleaner.

They have colors/finishes nowadays that look very much like aluminum.

Both of the intakes I have were done in gloss black and they still look good 15 years later for the dual quad and about 12 years later for the Edelbrock Performer.

Cleanup on these is pretty easy.

 

I sand blasted my vintage Edmunds intake. It was pretty ugly, so I cleaned it up first with a RoLock scotchbrite disk on my drill, then blasted it.

hit reload on your bowser if the pics don't show...

Before-


After-


I've been running it like this for for years, bare sand blasted aluminum, because I ran out of gumption to polish it after doing the head. Since then, I have been thinking of having it ceramic coated to match my headers which also look like polished aluminum. The coating is by HPC.





Has anyone ceramic coated an aluminum intake?

Pete

 

I don't like the bead blast look.......................
First wash in the sink with dish washing soap..............next clean it with muriatic acid, wash again with soap and water. This will give it that new cast look.
Remember muriatic acid is ACID.

 

I've used the oven cleaner with good results. I've wondered what results you would get by using the liquid spray cleaner sold to clean aluminum fins on the home AC unit. Think it may some acid base.
Another trick I've tried on motoycycle cases that have a "sand cast" non smooth finish is to take aluminum barn paint -the kind with ground aluminum in the mix. And with a rag rub this onto the aluminum makes them sparkle.....

 

Has anyone ceramic coated an aluminum intake?

Pete[/quote]
I ceramic coated my Corvette intake and valve covers for my avitar and they look fine and don't take the constant cleaning of polished aluminum.

 

I ceramic coated my Corvette intake and valve covers for my avitar and they look fine and don't take the constant cleaning of polished aluminum.[/quote]

Cool, that is why I want to do my intake, it is looking dingy after 16,000 miles and I don't want to try and scrub it again, and again, and ...

Pete