I have devised a plan in respect of making my Moto Guzzi engine look presentable. The rocker covers are already polished, although they don't look like it, but the left hand one has now been brought back to a respectable shine, but still more work required. My WorkMate mounted polishing wheel did the hard work and the photos show the comparison between the two covers.
The front chain cover is sand casted and had been painted over as is the rest of the engine, but as it is proudly on display I thought I would try and polish it. I started with the angle grinder and electric drill with abrasive flap wheels, these removed the paint and much of the casting roughness. Hand rubbing with 80 grade sandpaper followed by 120 and a fine pointed mini grind stone on my Dremel in the corners, got it fairly smooth. Emery paper was next, using various grades, down to 600 before my drill mounted polishing brushes took over. The photo was taken after a trial polish and I can start to see my reflection, but it's hard work and I ended with sore thumb and fingers tips, but worth it. The masking tape is wrapped around the alternator to keep the dust out of it, having removed the black plastic cover. fortunately a polished aluminium one is available and that's a must.
For the rest of the engine, the deeply finned cylinders and head, I will remove and send away, along with the carburetters for vapour blasting, there is a company in Sevenoaks that specializes in this work. As for the rest of the crankcase and gearbox, I don't want or need to strip out the internals so vapour blasting is not an option, so I will wire brush the crud off and simply respray with aerosol engine paint.
I've had another couple of hours polishing the chain cover and I'm pretty happy with it now, although I'm equally sure I will continually go back and polish it. I think the above photo does show the improvement and the other picture shows the tools involved.
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