which polish for polished 304 stainless exhaust tips?

I

imported_Astral

New member
ok... total n00b alert here:



I have an exhaust with polished 304 stainless steel tips. They are turning yellow from heat and have tons of salt on 'em. In other words, they could use some polishing.



Now, I have "Mothers Billet Metal Polish" that I inherited from someone -- is that OK to use on 304 stainless steel?



If not, what works well? "Mother's Mag & Aluminum"?



I was told that NevrDull didn't work so well on these tips... but folks had success with English Custom Polish Chrome and hot environment polish.



Does that mean that I should look for chrome polishes? Does that mean that my tips are actually chrome?



Photo of exhaust tip, if it helps.
 
hadboosttroy said:
the mothers may work, neverdull should work as well. another alternative would be megs nxt all metal polish, or zaino glass polish works as well.
Click to expand...



thanks.. which mothers? as i mentioned above, i have "mothers billet metal polish" .. is that ok?



looks like nevrdull doesn't take care of the yellwing. i will look ingo meg's nxt all metal polish.



anyone know what's similar to this stuff:

http://www.englishcustompolishing.com/usca/hotchrome.html

that is locally available?
 
I would think the billet polsh would be ok, bit I would call mother's directly and get the correct answer. I've used Poorboy's pro-polish with good results on stainless steel.
 
I would have that English Custom Polish on hand. Once the tips are cleaned, you can polish them with it. I have used it with a felt polishing wheel on drill as well.
 
I use Meg's NXT All Metal Polysh. It finishes to a very nice reflective surface. Also, it leaves behind a layer that slows down any future oxidation. I haven't done my exhaust tips for 4 months now and they are still shiny and reflective (but with water spots).
 
I ordered English Custom "Hot Chrome" (hot environments) polish. What kind of felt wheel can I use? Any links? Is Mother's Powerball anything like that?
 
That discoloration is hard to get off by hand...I had no luck.



The thing that worked the best for me was a jewelry buffing wheel and rouge ( like this )





Here is the before and after:



This is the before - but after using metal polish, neverdull and some poorboys polishes:



tips_before.jpg




Here is after:



tips_after.jpg




Side by side:



tips.jpg
 
Yukon. That looks great.



How were you able to get the inside of the tips clean with a 6 inch polishing wheel? Did you cut it down to a smaller diameter so you could fit it into the tip?
 
BLK_03 said:
Yukon. That looks great.



How were you able to get the inside of the tips clean with a 6 inch polishing wheel? Did you cut it down to a smaller diameter so you could fit it into the tip?
Click to expand...



Thanks!



I forgot to clarified that the link above is for reference. The buffing wheel kit I have has a 4" wheel and fit perfect inside the 4" rolled tips. :2thumbs:
 
I just did some hand-polishing with the English Custom Polish Hot Environment & Chrome Polish... I was pretty durn impressed!



I tried using One Grand Chrome Polish before this (accidentally shipped instead of the real thing) and it didn't make a dent in the bluing/golding.. it cleaned it up some, and added shine, but it was shiny blue/golding exhaust. So didn't really do it for me.



Anyways, I almost completely cleared up the exhaust tips today with the ECP Hot Environment polish. There are still some small things left and spending more time (or maybe using the powerball) will clear it up more... but it was cold and getting dark. I will be more thorough in the spring.



Here are some poor quality pictures..



This is a washed exhaust (w/ soap), before any polishing (w/ New England winter contributing, I'm sure):



completebefore.jpg




Here's a very blurry photo of a cleaned up tip (from today, sorry it was getting dark and I didn't take more pics):



rbblurry.jpg




Here's before/after from the outside, again sorry about not very good image quality:



rbexhaustcomparo.jpg




Brutal photos with flash.. show every flaw... this was before, and you can see some parts that were helped by One Grand Chrome Polish:



rbexhaustbrutal.jpg




Same brutal flash, this is today's after with the English Custom stuff:



rbexhaustbrutal2.jpg




As you can see, I only really worked on the parts visible from the outside.. you can see the completely untreated/unpolished parts... and you can see that on the cleaned up parts, there's still more work to do!



In the spring, I will probably take the exhaust shrouds off and clean it up nice and proper. Or at least try to get in all the places as much as I can.



For now, I have dramatically improved appearance... I almost forgot that I had shiny exhaust tips. This should get me through the rest of the winter.



(BTW, I wiped up the plastic shroud after this pic.. and I didn't do anything with the inside of the exhaust tips, as they are sooty as hell... and the car runs rich and consumes oil by design, so sooty inside forever.)
 
I use Wenol Blue for light work, or Autosol first, and then Wenol as a final polish. The Wenol alone works great on both my Mustang Pipes, as well as the pipes on my BMW M Performance.



~Darren
 
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