How to clean exhaust pipes

[passimakopoulos]

Hi guys,
I had an incident the other day, a plastic bag stuck on the exhaust...
When waa hot I removed it with a towel but some stains now are very obvious and I want to find a way to clean it!
Do you have any solution?
I read all across the Internet about cleaning exhaust creams but all of them are for shiny chrome exhausts..

 

[K9F]

If it's on the headers and you use a polishing medium you'll find you'll have to do the lot as the area you attempt to clean will lose the golden tarnish and go silver. I think it was Ferraiolo1who has polished his and it does look cool but I have neither the time nor inclination? Apologies Ferraiolo 1 if it wasn't you.
You could try warming the bike up and carefully using a sharp edge gently removing what is left. Isopropyl alcohol is also good for getting rid of plastic/sticky residue but unlike my first suggestion make sure the pipes are cold in the second. Toothpaste is also a gentler abrasive that may work? Good luck.

 

[ferraiolo1]

Red then white scotch brite followed by metal polish.

 

[passimakopoulos]

If it's on the headers and you use a polishing medium you'll find you'll have to do the lot as the area you attempt to clean will lose the golden tarnish and go silver. I think it was Ferraiolo1who has polished his and it does look cool but I have neither the time nor inclination? Apologies Ferraiolo 1 if it wasn't you.
You could try warming the bike up and carefully using a sharp edge gently removing what is left. Isopropyl alcohol is also good for getting rid of plastic/sticky residue but unlike my first suggestion make sure the pipes are cold in the second. Toothpaste is also a gentler abrasive that may work? Good luck.

Thanks for the reply!
Somebody told me to use "Autosol anti blau"
Shall I buy ant try this stuff?

 

[passimakopoulos]

Red then white scotch brite followed by metal polish.

Thanks ill try that!

 

[ferraiolo1]

Yes auto sol stainless polish works well. its what I use.

 

[K9F]

^^^^Autosol is indeed excellent stuff, buy a couple of tubes and have plenty of rags ready as you'll end up doing the lot!

 

[Sullaha]

I had something similar happen to my headers. I tried the Autosol first but the plastic bits were too thick and too stuck for the paste to shift by itself. I ended up using a piece of 1.2mm thick aluminium with a sharpened edge as a scraper to 'chip' those bits off, this left behind scuff marks of aluminium on the textured headers. Fortunately enough the Autosol could polish these off leaving no trace. It was a time consuming operation so I'm now an advocate for the banning of plastic bags!

 

[passimakopoulos]

Hi guys! Finally I bought the autosol cream, applied to the exhaust and cleaned it. The stains not 100%removed but I noticed that the gold light yellow colour of the pipes ( when brand new) was totally removed!
I don't mind cause it fit's with the s&s slip on metallic colour but I was thinking, will this yellow gold colour appear at some point when I do a 100 kmtrs drive with the heat running all over? To they polish in the factory the pipes with something that I removed it with autosol? Was overall a smart move to use autosol?

 

[Sullaha]

The gold appearance will return with use. I polished mine to a completely sliver/grey appearance and within a couple of decent hard rides it was back to gold.

 

[passimakopoulos]

The gold appearance will return with use. I polished mine to a completely sliver/grey appearance and within a couple of decent hard rides it was back to gold.

Thanks for the quick response! I thought so too but glad you mentioned it!
Have you ever thought about painting them black matte?

 

[Murdock]

No paint would resist the heat. Powder Coating is another option but would fade into dirty grey after a few months.

 

[ferraiolo1]

You can have them ceramic coated.
But yes. They will always turn yellow. It’s the nature of the stainless. I usually wipe mine down quick with autosol every few hundred miles over a beer. The more you do it the less time it takes to make them look new

 

[Sullaha]

No paint would resist the heat. Powder Coating is another option but would fade into dirty grey after a few months.

Powder coating with a ceramic material maybe, most powder coating is thermoset polymer so no bueno!
I've used VHT header paint with some success, surface prep is key like any painting but the curing process is critical.
I'd say you'd get a reasonable result using something like that, if you're fussy about such things find your local customisers and have a chat with them.