Rejuvenate / Restore the appearance of the front Exhaust Header Pipe

If your motorcycle exhaust pipe is looking brown, rusty or generally just not as good as it did when the bike left the showroom, then this guide is for you.

Need to do something about this……….

I’m lucky, it’s not too much of a back breaking job for me as I have a hydraulic workbench to raise the bike. You’ll have to use my old method…..lay on an old blanket along side the bike (you’ll be more comfy and be better able to see what you are doing)

If you have an ‘S’ take the belly pan off.

Sand paper – you want metalworkers sandpaper (wet and dry type is best) not woodworkers sandpaper. If your pipe is bad start with a fairly rough grade, maybe P600, no rougher though or you’ll have deep scratches to remove later. Time and patience is the key, work too hard at the pipe and you could make a mess of it, a scratched/hazed finish instead of a nice shiny smooth finish. Better to work with a sandpaper that’s a little too fine and take longer to do the job.

Tear some of the sandpaper into small lengths about 2cm wide and 8cm long. Work on the worst bits of the pipe first then the rest of the pipe….round the very top of the pipe where it enters the cylinder tends to be bad – undo and drop the clamp (torque setting 23N-m / 16.5 lb-ft). Once you’ve got the worst corrosion off use a really fine wet and dry sandpaper and use a liquid auto polish (AutoGlym, Mer or whatever) as a ‘lube’ – do the whole pipe with this until you have a good even finish.

Finally buff it up with a metal polish such as Autosol to take out any fine scratches remaining with a final buff up with clean cloth…….spray some WD40 on a piece of cloth and wipe over the pipe (do this after every wash)…..job done.

The rear exhaust header and pipework under the backend of the bike is hard to work on……..I just use a brass wire brush from time to time and wipe down with WD40 to stop it looking too tatty.

It’s not hard, just takes some time, patience and a lot of elbow grease!!

Sorry the photos aren’t too good, taken a couple of months back in the Christmas holidays……. post Christmas boozing shakes I think! 🙂

Another great product to use regularly: Scottoiler FS365