What's best for cleaning off stains on frame?

[Slipperman]

I have alot of staining on the Black visible sections of frame, as well as silver aluminum peices like footpegs, shin gaurds, levers etc...

The stains look like someone spilled liquid on these parts, and it got baked into the metal. Is Mothers a good gentle approach? Or will that screw up the black powdercoat? I'm not trying to shine, just clean these waterspot stains off. These stains are too deep for the usual Pro Honda and elbow grease that I employ over the rest of the bike.

Anybody else deal with a cleaning job like this? Any success?

Jim

[matey_peeps]

the frame's painted, not powdercoated, so you'll have to exercize caution.

and i'm honestly drawing a blank on what you could use on it. perhaps a cleaner wax?

[Slipperman]

I went to Met-All.com and saw that their aluminum cleaner is water based and is purported to clean "water stains." I wonder if this will work at least on the silver aluminum parts.

[Pete in PA]

I wax my visible frame with the rest of the bike, it's paint after all.

[John01XX]

On the Frame use most any Polish. Avoid abrasives. But use Polish Not Wax to clean it up, then wax to maintain.

On the metel (aluminun) you can use the Mothers metel polish.

I use Sonny's metel polish that works well or "Da Bomb" metel polish also works well.

[bigmac72]

Not for the faint hearted and exercise extreme caution.

Depending on what made the stain (chances are you don't know so you might need to try a few different methods).

Oily stains can be removed with ordinary kerosene or petroleum. Petroleum products can be found in most waxes and polishes on the market.

Try soft rubbing with bicarb and water. Not only great for battery terminals but also good with unknown stains too.

If the stain is from hard water calcium deposits are best removed using acids. Start with vinegar (acetic acid) first and progressively work through to stronger acids like lemon (add fine table salt for a little abrasion if necessary). I actually use a week solution of phosporic acid. You can buy it from a hardware store. If the parts come off you soak overnight in Coca-Cola (it contains weak phosphoric acid amongst other things). Very good on aluminium (I'm from Oz) and stainless.

With unknown stains you can try a non-acid wheel cleaner (but also use caution as although its not acid its still an alkali and will do a lot of damage if left on too long).

Laundry powder (also alkali) in a just wet fashion can be softly rubbed on the stain.

Autosol and Autosol fine are great for uncoated metal and so is metal polish from Meguiars. I have used all three in the showroom.

The best method is to try a little and repeat often rather than pour on a lot which can lead to a lot of heartache.