Has anyone polished their own aluminum heads?

[El Campo]

Have had terrible luck with coating heads and intakes with clearcoat and powdercoat will not hold up to the heat of heads according to the powdercoaters that I have talked to. Clear starts to lose adhesion around 250-350 degrees and accelerates flaking of it. So I decided that I am going to polish the heads, intake and maybe even the accessory drive brackets. Has anyone done this themself before? I know that shops do it all the time and I suspect that the right tools would make it a thousand times easier. Any tips? Also would sealers hold up to this kind of heat after I get done polishing them so they do not oxidize right up again?

[jsdoyle]

I'm wondering the same thing about polishing aluminum valve covers. I've heard that oven cleaner will remove the oxidation but what then. Would a clear coat hold up on the VC's?

Would I be better off just getting chrome VC's?

[piecesparts]

If you want to remove oxidation, then get something that has a citric acid base and use it to etch your aluminum. I have a product that I got from a local supplier at a car show. It is called a citrus descaler and it came from the web supplier listed below.

www.dirtytocleancleaner.com

[jhaymon]

i use aluma-brite to clean, smooth out the surface with steel wool, then a buffing pad with jewelers rouge to bring em to a shine. the alumabrite is the a much stronger version of the eagle one aluminum cleaner you can get at most boat supply stores and i get my buffing pads from the paint store. they just mount on any drill, but make sure your drill can obtain at least 2200 rpms. then just put a good clear on em if you want. putting clear on polished aluminum dulls it just a bit, but it will protect it from staining and pitting.

if you have rough cast aluminum your going to have to do some grinding. go down to sears, lowes, harbor freight or some place like that and get you some rotary files,a good set of hand files, and some various finer grit papers(start with 600grit and working down to 1000grit).

take your time and they'll glow like they were plated. i charge allot to polish aluminum, not because it's hard, but because it so time consuming.