About to swap in my new motor. My chrome headers are of course blued. I know anything I do will be temporary but I'd like to freshen them up. Tips or tricks to freshen up the shine on them?
The cure for chrome headers that have blued is on going and pointless. I used to run chrome headers and I tried EVERY polish, coating and salve you can think of. NONE worked. NONE. I run my headers painted now and I'll never go back. One of my friends broke it down like this, "Toast a slice of bread. Afterwards, try to turn the toast back into nice white bread. Can't be done."
Trying to keep chrome headers from turning blue or cleaning the blue off is a lesson in futility. There is a lot of products available and I have tried a bunch of them and never found any that lived up to their magic bullet claim. HRP
I think it takes a double walled pipe, or maybe a ceramic coating inside to keep the outside temp below the bluing temperature.
A trick to prevent or reduce bluing. Wrap the pipe with copper wire next to the head. An inch or 2 wide is enough. The copper absorbs enough heat to reduce or eliminate bluing. Same principle as the finned heat sinks on the heads of motorcycles.
I kind of think chrome headers look cool with blueing tint. Lets people know you actually drive it. I don't even bother to try all those remedies . The experts that know it all will tell ya she is running lean,LOL so what !
I've never used it, but there's a product from the same people who make Simichrome polish that's supposed to remove blueing on motorcycle exhaust pipes: http://www.competitionchemicals.com/blueaway/
Blue away is what we always used at the bike shop I worked at. It always seemed to do the job of removing it, but I have never seen anything successful at preventing it... Edit: Stuart beat me to it.
Check out this link (vinegar and aluminum foil) http://www.harley-davidsonforums.com/forums/exhaust-systems/42639-cleaning-pipes.html
I went to the Harley shop and got something called "Blue Job" ..... no, no, no. "Blue Job" It worked on my bike, but it was a PIA to do. I re-do them every once in a while http://www.blue-job.net/
I used blue-away on a pair of chromed chevy exhaust mainfolds. MAN! I rubbed like crazy on those things. They looked a little better.........sold 'em at the next swap meet.
Have them pulled... Cheap chrome is mostly burnt off, not just blued, but gone. I'll give them a spit shine and onto the next motor they go. I like the blue (the truck is blue) just hoped to revive the shine.
As a long time owner of old British motorcycles, I have tried about all of the anti-bluing remedies- including Blue-Away. Blue-Away is about as good as any- takes some of the blue off, but it just comes back quickly. Learn to live with it or get the headers ceramic coated...!
I have been playing with chrome pipes or headers for a long time and have yet to find anything that takes the blue away, it works from the inside out. I have cleaned them up with an SOS pad to keep them shiny, SOS pads have some good soap and polishing compound in them. *They work on about anything chrome plated. There are some tricks to slow the bluing process that we ( the guys I have known all my life we) have used but one blue there is nothing that you can do as far as I have found in my life time. You can spritz high temp black paint inside and that helps. You can make sure that you are not timed slow so that you are not breathing as much fire into the pipes and you can run it fat to keep your spent gasses cooler. But once blue always blue as far as I know. *SOS pads are steel wool and do not do well on soft metals like aluminum, little bits of the steel will get embedded in the metal and rust.
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