Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

I had some spare time to try my hand at polishing my carb domes. I wish I had taken a "before" pic, but here are two to look at.

They were pitted and grey as aluminum gets under the hood. I'm really happy with how they turned out.....except the rest of the hardware now looks even crappier than it did before......





.......and now the slippery slope begins.. ...

Mike Hudson

Wow-those look awesome. How long did it take you? What steps did you use to arrive at the polished look? I assume you used a buffing wheel and various compounds. Again-they look very nice.

SA

That's the downside of polishing. It turn you into an obsessive compulsive maniac and causes you to start polishing everything. I have a full polished valve cover on the 69, looks great. I bought it that way and am trying to avoid getting the obsession.

They really look great. I am always frightened by the time benefit ratio of undertaking a project like that - then finding the ratio has multiplied exponentially to the negative as I methodically go piece by piece through the engine bay because as you state, making one piece look good makes everything else look bad!
Nice work, but I am curious as to how long that took.

Scary.
You won't have so much free time because you will be VERY busy going thru every thing else in the engine bay.


Linda

The procedure is:
lots of elbow grease applied to:
progressively finer and finer grades of wet/dry sandpaper (180 - 600 grit), followed by using:
polishing compounds (tripoli, white, then red) applied to:
various diameters and shaped buffing wheels, attached to:
air die grinder, electric drill, and Dremel tool.
They took about 4 hours each over several days.

Has anyone done any DIY plating?,

I have done diy plating. I use the zinc/copycad system from caswellplating.com you can see some pieces i did on my chrome thread.

wow, that's really nice. I gave up too easily; now I have to go back and polish some more.

I did the same thing - jewelers bits/dremel/.pastes/buffers etc and a LOT of alcohol (and the same on the water pump) and it is worth it for the domes. The rest of the assembly is a bugger to do - looking for a cheap "small parts" blaster so that I can get really anal - but polished pots really do look nice.

Those are nice! In case you run out of things to polish and you're still obsessed, ill help you out and let you do mine! Lol.

when i get it - and assuming obsession is still my thing - happy to take it on

look great. stupid question how do you remove them do you lose the carb oil.

Hi Coocoo, welcome to the forum!
Remove the plunger from the top, there will be some oil there.
Remove the 4 screws at the base, lif the dome off. There will be some oil left around the piston - should not be too big a mess.

Please post your location in our profile and consider introducing yourself in the "introductions" section!

mraitch wrote:I did the same thing - jewelers bits/dremel/.pastes/buffers etc and a LOT of alcohol (and the same on the water pump) and it is worth it for the domes. The rest of the assembly is a bugger to do - looking for a cheap "small parts" blaster so that I can get really anal - but polished pots really do look nice.

Harbor Freight has a nice bench top blast cabinet large enough to even a cylinder head for about $110.00. Not a bad price, and you can use walnut shells or glass beads.

Harbor Freight has a nice bench top blast cabinet large enough to even a cylinder head for about $110.00. Not a bad price, and you can use walnut shells or glass beads.

I bought this one. It leaked like a sieve and was very difficult to see my work. I returned it about two hours later.

I buy a lot of stuff from HB but this is one item I would NOT recommend.

Shannon