need some help polishing

[allcarfan]

I have to repolish my valve covers and they have some very mild scratches and what appears to be a little bit of surface rust. What would you suggest I use as a compound to get this off and maybe get the scratches out? I tried never dull and that did nothing but shine up the metal. I tried some jewelers white rouge and it just wasnt aggrssive enough. I dont want to damage the metal.


What about 200 grit sand paper and wet sand it??

 

[fastcoupe68]

are they alluminum or steel (chrome), check that I forgot you said rust. How bad is the rust? I think 200 is to aggresive you are just going to scratch the hell out of those things. If the rust is not bad you can use mothers mag polish, if that does not work on the rust I think they are to far gone to polish the rust off. If you have a buffing wheel you could use red polishing compound I believe that is the most aggresive and if that does not work I dont know what to tell you.

 

[allcarfan]

ooops...i meant 2000 grit, not 200. The stuff that is on there isnt rust, i am not sure what it is. The covers are aluminum

 

[fastcoupe68]

you can start with something lower and work your way up. I have started with 500 on the old 55-57 alum valve covers on t-birds and just worked my way up to 2000 grit and then used the white rouge and a polishing wheel and then used the mothers polish on them and they all came out really nice.

 

[allcarfan]

thanks fast. i didnt know if 500 was too rough. I will see how it comes out. Thanks again

 

[fastcoupe68]

I would use the least aggresive I could to start out with and go from there. I know the t-bird covers were so heavy and had so much material you could get away with sanding the hell out of them. One other thing when you do get to the higher grit def go the way of the wet sanding method and go in one motion like back and forth to avoid swirl marks just like you would if you were waxing