Making things shiny

[bretly]

While waiting for my engine to cool down to. Delete my rear heater I thought I’d start cleaning it. Maybe it would run cooler/better without the extra layer of grease insulation. Any reason not to polish some of these things. I realize some were painted one day. Manifold intake, fuel pressure regulated, crossover. That paint is long gone though. Will polishing them be detrimental in anyway?

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84 Vanagon GL

[Sodo]

Yes shiny is cooler,,,but not a LOT cooler. Clean is cooler than having some insulating dirt caked on.

Let's take that zinc-plated steel shield around your distributor. It has a layer of zinc corrosion. If you were to rub that off somehow, and make it shinier, you would likely remove the zinc down to the bare steel, then it will rust red. So what you wanna do is brush it off lightly with a soft wire brush, maybe steel wool, but don't take the zinc coating off.

Your alternator is aluminum, which quickly develops a surface oxide that "protects" the aluminum below. It is "a corrosion" and it looks like corrosion (whitish fuzz/powder. If you remove it down to the bare aluminum will have to develop an oxide (corrode) again. And the next time it corrodes it will be 'uneven' and less appealing than the original corrosion. Not detrimental, but for it to look good you'll have to keep on polishing off the 'uneven' corrosion that develops. Maybe spray paint it with clear after polishing (or silver and don't polish)).

To make stuff look better, a soft wire brush, and brush off the hairy or crystalline stuff, scale etc, don't go down to the shiny metal.

Hope that helps
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'90 Westy EJ25, 2Peloquins, 3knobs, pressure-oiled GT mainshaft, filtered, cooled gearbox
'87 Tintop w 47k 53k, '12 SmallCar EJ25, cooled filtered gearbox
....KTMs, GasGas, SPOT mtb

[Jeffrey Lee]

Cleaning is definitely a good thing, not only for heat loss, but perhaps more importantly to aid in later identifying leaks, wear marks, etc.. Polishing, probably not advantageous.

I do, however, whenever I need to remove a part, take the opportunity to thoroughly clean and protect it, either with a quick coat of auto wax or perhaps even paint before reinstalling it. That coolant crossover pipe, for example, is showing signs of corrosion, and a sudden leak could be disastrous. It would benefit from removal, inspection, and either repainting to prevent further corrosion, or replacement.

Once, when my wife saw me priming and painting a bracket or some such thing from the underside of the van, she asked, "Why are you bothering making that look pretty, when no one's gonna see it anyway?"

Though tempted to deliver a barnyard discourse on the meaning and concept of "quality," I caught myself and instead replied that one does not paint something to make it pretty, but to preserve and protect it.

Which in the end may be the same thing ...
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[bretly]

So what I gather is if it’s already red and rusty then go ahead and sand and paint. Otherwise brush the dirt and grime off of it and move on which is the route I’m taking now.

I did notice while cleaning, a little black plastic plug about the size of a quarter at the front of the engine revere the gear box bolts up. Any idea what that might be for. Find something new on this thing everyday.

And a possible oil leak between my transmission and engine. Going to monitor that. Hope it’s not the case but there’s never anything on the ground and it was only a drop.
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84 Vanagon GL

[Ahwahnee]

You're on the right track but 'polish' may be more work and harder to maintain than freshly painted as original with and acceptance of some 'patina'.

Your engine is really pretty clean compared to many and the body color (Ivory I think) really sets off the engine - so efforts to make it more appealing should bring a satisfying result.

[bretly]

The body is currently two tone brown/tan with tan interior. I’m about two months it should be two tone surf green/pearl white with a white interior. Have been replacing part after part, line after line so most of it except the block
Should be new fairly soon.
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84 Vanagon GL

[bretly]

The body is currently two tone brown/tan with tan interior. I’m about two months it should be two tone surf green/pearl white with a white interior. Have been replacing part after part, line after line so most of it except the block
Should be new fairly soon.
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84 Vanagon GL

[calo1956]

Yea, theres nothing like a fresh engine bay
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Enjoy the ride....
72 bug
80 westfalia

[Zeitgeist 13]

Here's a 2.1 I'm just finishing. It's kinda shiny, but only the stuff that normally gets all yucky. I had to completely dismantle and then rebuild the engine harness.

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Casey--

'89 Bluestar ALH w/12mm Waldo pump, PP764 and GT2052
'01 Weekender --> full camper
y u rune klassik?