Arresting aluminum oxidation on forks, triple clamps and shocks

Busaboy

.040 Over
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
91
Location
Satellite Beach, FL
Ride
2005 Rocket III
Bike has lived it's entire life near the ocean in FL. I'm the 3rd owner. 25K miles. Paint was immaculate but the chrome was a bit rough and there was some cancer in the clear coated aluminum. I cleaned up the chrome as best as I could and bought some used OEM mirrors. I decided to attack the oxidation spots on my forks, triple clamps and rear shocks.

1. Scrapped away the loose clear coat to expose the oxidation.

2. Sanded the oxidation with nail emery boards and did a minimally acceptable polishing job.

3. Coated the bare aluminum with clear coat touch up paint.

The aluminum looks way better. Certainly worth the effort. I'm hoping the aluminum oxidation has been arrested for a while.
 
Busaboy,
My bike suffered the same corrosion issues, living in Hawaii. My answer, that will hopefully last a long time, was a lot of powder coating, for triple trees, bar risers, bar clamp, gauge bracket, etc etc etc.

Sadly, it's either cover it, or commit to the excess labor of maintaining it like you have. Somewhere on these forums I posted a list of all the bolt sizes you can go off to replace steel with alu or Ti bolts and stop the corrosion of them.

Nothing worse than exposed, unprotected aluminum near the ocean besides exposed unprotected mild-steel My Daytona has uncoated aluminum engine cases, poor girl can't wait till I move away from the ocean and restore it
 
Most don't understand that metals like aluminum and stainless need oxygen to cause the metal to form a protective oxide layer. Deprive either of oxygen and add a corrosive or galvanic source and the metal will hyper corrode. The clear coat is a double edge sword. It protects the aluminum as long as it totally encapsulates it. Once a breach occurs is can allow a corrosive like salt in and block oxygen. A stainless screw's threads will corrode due to them being oxygen deprived and then chemical and galvanic forces do damage. A stainless screw threaded into aluminum is a disaster waiting to happen.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, came here to say something much like that. Aluminium oxidizes instantly when it is exposed to air - and then it stops there for quite a while, the oxidized layer actually acts like a protectant. Clear-coating leaves you with a compounded problem when it starts oxidizing under there, now you have both oxidization *and* a layer of clear coat you have to get off to even get at the metal.

I live in a pretty humid and salty climate too and I'd rather just break out the drill, the Flitz polishing ball and polish and go over the stuff every few months. We're talking half an hour of satisfying work watching the stuff shine right back up.

The only pain my butt is the rear rim, that gigantic brake disc means I can barely get in there.
 
IF you spray everything with PLEDGE it wont carrode
 
Actually there's no proof that Pledge is safe on uncoated aluminium. Many waxes will dull aluminium almost instantly, you need something like an all-natural beeswax to be really sure.
 
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