Cleaning

   Despite washing, polish and painting of the running gear the bodywork and wheels still looked dull. They had been washed several times but it does not shine. I set to washing the wheel with Gunk, an engine degreaser Click HERE for website thiinking that would do the job. Things got serious when I got the toothbrush out. The Gunk was loosening the dirt but it need sone scrubing to lift the dirt off the wheels. Cast wheels with twin discs are fiddlily to clean. There are lots of nooks and crannies. Forty minutes of scrubbing had made a difference to the front wheel. It looked much better. The back wheel is not so difficult to get at so gunking and scrubing did not take so long or was as difficult. There is still some skin on my knuckles when I was finished. Washing off the Gunk with hot soapy water revealed some shiny wheels.

   I decided to try the gunk on the bodywork. There was quite alot of accumulated tar on the lower half of the fairing. I tried brushing Gunk on which had little effect. I then put sone gunk on the rag on gently rubbed the area. I was pleased with the results on two fronts; 1,the paint did not come off and B the muck did come off. The Gunk dissolved the tar and cut through the road dirty. With this discovery I went all over the body work with gunk on a rag. More hot soapy water the rinse off the Gunk and the job was done. The bike fairly sparkled. It made a nice job of th ethe crud that had built up on the headlights lens.

   The bike dried quickly in the sun so I thought "make hay". I found some T-Cut (click HERE for website) in the garage cupboard. I carefully applied the T-cut. If you are not careful you can cut right through the paint. I let the T-Cut dry and buffed it off. Again there was dirt ont he rag and the paint shone a little more. Whilst we are at it I might as well go mad I thought. I rummaged in the garage cupboard for Turtle wax polish (click HERE for website) . This was applied to the panels and allowed to dry then was buffed off. For the first time the bike shone. Metallic grey is not that easy it make shine been there was a clear difference between starting and finishing.

   The downside is that the smell of  Gunk lingers so we had a smelly garage for several days. My hands were filthy and there was buckets of water about so there are no photos of the cleaning session.