If you've run out of things to polish......

[jscgdunn]

Hey George,
Susan has some silverware here in need of polishing. Looks great.  Pretty soon it will be way to nice to go down the road.

Jeff

[movenon]

Hey George,
Susan has some silverware here in need of polishing. Looks great.  Pretty soon it will be way to nice to go down the road.

Jeff

The problem is how do you keep it looking reasonable....?  "If it don't go then at least it should show"..... I sure like you FJ "R" ! Damn that' s good looking.
George

[Pat Conlon]

George, that is just beautiful. Cutting through that silver anodizing layer was a bitch huh?  I will never do another swing arm. Too much work.

I ran out of gas on my swingarm(s) and just did the top face and side face. I left the inner faces and pivot area silver anodized for easier clean up.

Never again.  

[movenon]

George, that is just beautiful. Cutting through that silver anodizing layer was a bitch huh?  I will never do another swing arm. Too much work.

I ran out of gas on my swingarm(s) and just did the top face and side face. I left the inner faces and pivot area silver anodized for easier clean up.

Never again.  

You are spot on about it being a bitch.. That merit badge is a hard one. I polished the inside but not as well as the "TV" side... The coating is very hard and the Aluminium is a hard grade also. Not soft... I am with you on not wanting to do another one.
George

[1tinindian]

Looks great George.
Damn right, it takes some effort to get there, doesn't it?

I'd say about the only thing I did differently, was that I blended the welds.
I polished the whole swing arm, and it is a challenge to keep looking nice, but, you just don't see that very often, and like my 91, they were steel originally, so anybody that knows about the FJ will scratch their head, wondering how I did that!
It's all in good fun!

You'll notice I removed the lip on the top and bottom of the extrusion, too, to aid in the polishing.

Leon

[movenon]

Yours looks better than mine for sure.  I just decided to move on to the next step. I could probably polish on that for another few weeks.  I decided to leave the webbing and welds.  It didn't speed the project up any..... That aluminum is a hard grade,  it's not the run of the mill soft motorcycle stuff.... I sanded and sanded on that coating, finally I took it over to the local powder coater and had him run a blaster over it.  Then sanded and sanded and sanded, then more sanding......The picture I posted is just off the polisher, I wiped it down with acetone to clean off the compound. I will hit it with some semi chrome after it gets mounted. 

On another note I took the black inside dash panels off and cleaned them up with rubbing compound when they were smooth enough I dressed them down with Mother's "Back To Black".  Gooped that stuff on liberally and let them sit over night. The next day I used some micro fiber cloth and polished them up and they look pretty good now.  Did the same with the instrument cluster cover.  Nice and shinny now.

Thanks for the inspiration Pat and Leon. 

George

[wyraider]

The 3M headlight restore kit is AMAZING, of course same melting at high speed rules apply:-)