Has anyone cleaned up a set of crusty old side pipes before? I have a set, but they were daily driven for 10 years and aren't looking great. I have basically no metal finishing experience and gave it a try with the tools I have, but I'm not having great success so far.

I took a buffing wheel on an angle grinder, and with some tripoli polish the collector area cleaned up pretty quickly. It's not a mirror finish but for a car I'm going to drive every day and leave outside in the parking lot at work it's good enough.

However the header tubes where they cross under the frame and up by the engine have some stuff caked on (rust, dirt?) and even with my most aggressive polish (a silver/grey one) does not seem able to remove it. A fine Scotch-Brite disc on the angle grinder makes quick work of this stuff, but it leaves deeper scratches in the tubes that I'm not able to polish out making it more of a brushed finish than polished. The last photo shows an example of this (tested on the back of one tube on the side facing the engine, where it won't be visible). Since these areas are all under the hood or fenders, I'd be willing to just do that and accept that they'll be a brushed finish in the engine compartment if it's my only option, but I'm curious what recommendations y'all might have for cleaning these up. Is there something I can try that will be better than a grinder, or are there specific polishing compounds or attachments you would recommend for this? I'm happy to buy any tools that might be helpful or make the job go faster/better.

 

Based on the yellowing I would assume they’re stainless. Have you confirmed this with a magnet?

Mine are stainless, and definitely yellowing in spots too. I’m able to keep the collectors and tubes at bay with regular cleaning, but I know the actual pipes in the engine bay and under the car are probably worse for the wear.

I’ve heard good things about Diamondbrite metal polish, but have never actually tried it myself. I’ll be following along.



Something I’ve heard that works well on metal with baked on oil too. Oven cleaner!

 

All roads to a smooth, shiny appearance are paved with successively finer abrasives. Start with a ceramic oxide or aluminum oxide paper (don’t bother with silicon carbide) with 80 or 100 grit to remove the deep scratches. Once those are gone, then move to 220/400/600/800/1000/1500/2000/3000, then bring in your polishes of choice.

You don’t necessarily need to use all of the grits listed. If you skip one, you’ll spend some extra time with the next grit and may end up using more paper.

Having a DA (dual action) sander will make the process faster and save your elbows.

 

Mother's and Harley Chrome polish served me well when I had the chrome Hookers

 

First,, determine what you have,, chromed steel or stainless steel. Your approach will be different for each......

 

They are definitely stainless steel. I bought them new in 2012 or 2013.

I spent another 2 or 3 hours working on it. My 180 and 300 grit (7446 and 7447) Scotch-Brite buffing discs arrived for my angle grinder along with some little cylinder ones for my die grinder and those made pretty good work of the rust. I'm not going to be able to remove most of the pitting without going to actual grinding discs and I'm not interested in spending that amount of time or effort.

Tomorrow evening I'll go to 600 grit (7448) Scotch-Brite and hopefully get started on polishing compounds. I've got a fairly coarse compound that I think will work about like 1000 grit, but we'll see. There's a chance I might have both headers done by end of day Thursday working a few hours a night after work, but based on how long it's taking it might spill into Friday...

I'm not worried about making them perfect, I just want the section that you see sticking out under the fenders to look as nice as possible and I'd like them to look decent to a quick glance with the hood open. I'm not spending the time to polish all the tight little sections between the tubes by hand and then mostly focusing on what I can get at with the angled grinder and die grinder.

The reality is this car was my daily driver and as soon as it's running it will be again, and these are just going to get dirty all over again. They were just so crusty I couldn't bring myself to bolt them up to the new engine without doing anything...

 

New Engine.....................NEW HEADERS ( that's just me ) !!! Saw these from Summit @ only $500, cheap enough ???

Click here >>>> https://www.summitracing.com/parts/s...JEAYIlXlRXkQDw

 

I see your progress... yes. Looking better. They are a good candidate for Cerakoat. Great coating,, comes in many colors,, ya might like that. Easy to maintain from now on. Especially for your daily.....

 

Those aren't sidepipe headers.

Besides, nothing wrong with a little work to bring back stainless steel headers.

 

I found a brass wire wheel in a drill worked pretty good removing rust and chunks of crud with out tearing up the chrome.

 

I have SS side pipes on a 71 and 68. I have found no EASY way to improve their appearance. Yours are starting to look pretty good, especially for a DD. They will look better on the car since they are not in the "line of sight".

 

Well, I got one header to a point I'm happy with it. I ended up going from green to red to grey Scotchbrite (180-320-600 grit or so). Then polished with grey, brown tripoli, and green compound. I only used the tripoli and green on the collector and the short sections of primary tube that are visible outside the car. I did go over the rest of the primary tubes with the gray compound but I didn't really take my time. I'm just ready to be done and get on to the next one.

The tripoli and green compound didn't seem to do much and I probably won't waste my time with them on the other side. I suspect I should use something like 800-1200 grit before jumping to the grey compound, and it seems like a lot of faint scratches from the Scotchbrite are still visible under direct light. But the result I got is better than I was expecting and more than I need for what this car will be used for. On the other side I'm just going to go through the Scotchbrite grits and then buff with the grey compound and call it a day, and I think the 2 headers will be mostly identical.

Overall I would say it's probably not worth it to restore a set of these vs buying new for ~$1500, if you're like me and only have limited time to work on the car. With the time I'll have spent polishing by the time I finish the other side I could probably have had the engine and trans in, AC system designed and built, and most of the interior installed lol. But it is relaxing work and it's very satisfying when done.

 

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Looks nice in pic. 👌


If you can truly do eng÷trans+a/c+interior build in the short time you spent on pipes,,, and enjoy it,,, your needed in my shop building customer cars..


GET IT DONE

 

Looks pretty good to me. How long do you think they might stay like that ?