Polishing Tunnel
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- Start date
Is there anything you use to keep from having to repolish after every ride? 
Maybe a clear coat or something?
Maybe a clear coat or something?The quickest easiest way to do it is a thick buffing wheel on a high rpm grinder with bar rouge. If you want it to really shine wet sand it first starting with 600 and work up to 1200 with a DA before you start polishing. The sanding gives you the best finish and actually makes the polishing much quicker with better results. I build Semi show trucks and have the misfortune of polishing a full truck about 6 times a year.
I see a lot of **** talk about polished sleds!!???
What up with that??
What up with that??
Yea I tried the polished tunnel look, guess I wasn't using the right stuff. So when it didn't work, I took my wire cup brush put it on the grinder and went to town on the tunnel. It matches the 5 dollar flat black rattle can paint job.
M
mtn_extreme
Well-known member
Go to your local truck stop and get a bottle of "Wicked aluminum polish". Pour in two cap fulls of lighter fluid and shake well. Wipe it on, let it dry and wipe it off. Great shine!!
vivid picture
picture it, were just staring at our sled then the grass then the sled- well i could ride on the grass, no wait. sit down- sled, grass, sled.... I GOTTA DO SOMTHIN! AAAA! polish it, stay focused, keep your mind off the grass.
but its been snowing since 10pm yesterday in WY
I see a lot of **** talk about polished sleds!!???
What up with that??
picture it, were just staring at our sled then the grass then the sled- well i could ride on the grass, no wait. sit down- sled, grass, sled.... I GOTTA DO SOMTHIN! AAAA! polish it, stay focused, keep your mind off the grass.
but its been snowing since 10pm yesterday in WY
Mothers aluminum polish, lots of rags, pack of backwoods cigars, satelite radio on channel 29 (ACDC) and 
Sawyer,
Wow.................
To fully appreciate the look on your Yamaha, a guy needs to spend a little bit of time on his own machine, and get 5 square inches to look like that mirror finish you achieved. I spent time today in my cold little shed trying to polish my sled for the first time ever, and I came to a few conclusions:
1) everybody here on this thread giving advice knows a lot more about this from first-hand experience than I do,
2) I still want to keep going because of that few square inches that finally got up to speed with some mirror shine, (damnation............)
3) a LITTLE Mother's goes a LONG way, because you've got to get it off
4) the elbow grease and lots of clean rags is coming down to be a key thing - no easy way around it
5) they were all out of mini-balls, but I've got to go get one, and some more buffing rounds for my Mega Mouse,
and
6) MY tunnel will never look as good as Sawyers' does, but that's not going to stop me from putting in a few hours to improve the look.
I always made fun of my buddy Billy who does his every year, and I'm still going to do that because that's my job. But man, it does look nice, and it's sort of addictive!
Money is tight, and I want new skis, but can't afford them. But doing my own maintenance and becoming all tangled up with my sled in the garage does me good on different levels, and cleaning everything under the hood, replacing all my heat tape, cleaning up my exhaust and repainting the black with high temp and polishing the aluminum pipe heat cover is cheap. Tackling the Diamond Drive R&R for a thorough cleaning and inspection and fluid/gasket replacement is cheap and gets you surgically involved with your best friend on the mountain too. Track alignment and tensioning, cleaning and greasing everything, and replacing the Canadian Chrome on the windshield (don't ask how it happened, and I won't have to tell you.....) with genuine Scotch Brand BLACK duct tape (the kind the race teams use) are all other good cheap essential walk-arounds and again gets serious bonding time with this mechanical beyotch.
Can't get away from the desire to continue the polishing after I started. A couple more weeks ought to get me toward a point I'll want to quit. I hope there's still some aluminum left after I'm done.......
Thanks for everybody's advice on this subject too.......
Snowing in the Tetons, which is a good thing.
Stovebolt
Team Ruptured Buzzard
(not many posts on the new forum yet - but I'll always be a rookie anyways.)
'07 M8 153 Black
Red powder coated Snow Eliminators
Custom graphics
2" M Series Riser Block
Boss Seat
Skinz hand breezers (because they protect nothing from any kind of impact)
original kind of crappy M skis, that want to be PPD X-MT's or PP's instead
Wow.................
To fully appreciate the look on your Yamaha, a guy needs to spend a little bit of time on his own machine, and get 5 square inches to look like that mirror finish you achieved. I spent time today in my cold little shed trying to polish my sled for the first time ever, and I came to a few conclusions:
1) everybody here on this thread giving advice knows a lot more about this from first-hand experience than I do,
2) I still want to keep going because of that few square inches that finally got up to speed with some mirror shine, (damnation............)
3) a LITTLE Mother's goes a LONG way, because you've got to get it off
4) the elbow grease and lots of clean rags is coming down to be a key thing - no easy way around it
5) they were all out of mini-balls, but I've got to go get one, and some more buffing rounds for my Mega Mouse,
and
6) MY tunnel will never look as good as Sawyers' does, but that's not going to stop me from putting in a few hours to improve the look.
I always made fun of my buddy Billy who does his every year, and I'm still going to do that because that's my job. But man, it does look nice, and it's sort of addictive!
Money is tight, and I want new skis, but can't afford them. But doing my own maintenance and becoming all tangled up with my sled in the garage does me good on different levels, and cleaning everything under the hood, replacing all my heat tape, cleaning up my exhaust and repainting the black with high temp and polishing the aluminum pipe heat cover is cheap. Tackling the Diamond Drive R&R for a thorough cleaning and inspection and fluid/gasket replacement is cheap and gets you surgically involved with your best friend on the mountain too. Track alignment and tensioning, cleaning and greasing everything, and replacing the Canadian Chrome on the windshield (don't ask how it happened, and I won't have to tell you.....) with genuine Scotch Brand BLACK duct tape (the kind the race teams use) are all other good cheap essential walk-arounds and again gets serious bonding time with this mechanical beyotch.
Can't get away from the desire to continue the polishing after I started. A couple more weeks ought to get me toward a point I'll want to quit. I hope there's still some aluminum left after I'm done.......
Thanks for everybody's advice on this subject too.......
Snowing in the Tetons, which is a good thing.
Stovebolt
Team Ruptured Buzzard
(not many posts on the new forum yet - but I'll always be a rookie anyways.)
'07 M8 153 Black
Red powder coated Snow Eliminators
Custom graphics
2" M Series Riser Block
Boss Seat
Skinz hand breezers (because they protect nothing from any kind of impact)
original kind of crappy M skis, that want to be PPD X-MT's or PP's instead
S
SKYJMPR
Active member
i used mother alumimum polish along with several microfiber clothes. Do a small area at a time and keep repeating over and over. Once you have the desired finsh, use a carnauba wax to protect and seal the pours.
Before
after
nicework
S
SilverGriz
Well-known member
Sawyer is still the man when it comes to polishing...I'm merely just a student. I had a few guys ask me about how to smooth out the scratches. I used 1000 grit and then 2000 grit sandpaper. Spend some extra time sanding for best results.
Stovebolt is exact right...it is an addiction. Be prepared to put many hours on your tunnel once you start.
Stovebolt is exact right...it is an addiction. Be prepared to put many hours on your tunnel once you start.
Last edited:
Maybe a little bit of helpful advice; I'm a truck driver, so I know polishing (it SUCKS). a lot of different products work well, but the key to polishing is "high speed", which creates a little bit of heat during the process. I would recomend using a high speed grinder, along with 8" polishing wheels. If you go to any truckstop you can get the wheels. Then you don't have to do ANY prep work. If your tunnel is raw, you can start with a yellow wheel, which is a little more coarse, then finish with a white wheel. It will give you a mirrored finish, with a fraction of the work! Oh, and the best type of polish to use with these wheels would be a liquid polish. The best that I have found is called "Zephyr Pro 40", I picked it up at the Boise Peterbilt shop. This process is VERY messy, though! I usually wear a pair of Tyvek coveralls, and I would definately recomend doing it outdoors!
Skyjumper, Slednoggin and SilverGriz, et al........
(Nice sleds by the way...)
How does a guy NOT know what tools he has? I have a cheapo grinder I bought from Harbor Freight a few years ago, and used it once and put it in the storage bench - apparently never to be seen since. I used it with a chainsaw wheel, and something about the experience must have shut it right out of my mind until this thread jarred my noggin or something....... (1-2-3-4-5- still have all fingers, so I dunno what it was that made me forget..) Okay, I actually have 10 fingers, but that's counting both hands, multiplying by 2x, doing all this math, and I hate math.........
I'll go get a cloth wheel or two for the grinder, and a ball for the drill and with the Mega Mouse and some grim determination, I'll simply surround that tunnel until she gives up. I'll post a pic when I get it done.............
Couple inches of fresh on the deck this morning and still snowing. Yes!
Stovebolt
Team Ruptured Buzzard
(Nice sleds by the way...)
How does a guy NOT know what tools he has? I have a cheapo grinder I bought from Harbor Freight a few years ago, and used it once and put it in the storage bench - apparently never to be seen since. I used it with a chainsaw wheel, and something about the experience must have shut it right out of my mind until this thread jarred my noggin or something....... (1-2-3-4-5- still have all fingers, so I dunno what it was that made me forget..) Okay, I actually have 10 fingers, but that's counting both hands, multiplying by 2x, doing all this math, and I hate math.........
I'll go get a cloth wheel or two for the grinder, and a ball for the drill and with the Mega Mouse and some grim determination, I'll simply surround that tunnel until she gives up. I'll post a pic when I get it done.............
Couple inches of fresh on the deck this morning and still snowing. Yes!
Stovebolt
Team Ruptured Buzzard
Aspens for me, not as sticky as pine.
Some blood from a fresh kill, little snow, little bit of that hard crusty snow and shes looking like a champ.
I must be in the minority, what is this thing you speak of ? Polish you say ?
Hmmmmmmm..................
Now is that what group of people in our society call "Bling Bling."
Hmmmmmm....................
Intresting
Thanks Stovebolt. Heres some more pics in the sun. Not the nicest one but I like it.
RPrecision,
............there's no way around it - I must be a closet "Flava-Flav"........
Bling on.
Flava-Dave
(aka "Stovebolt")
****************************
"Now is that what group of people in our society call "Bling Bling."
Hmmmmmm....................
Intresting"
............there's no way around it - I must be a closet "Flava-Flav"........
Bling on.
Flava-Dave
(aka "Stovebolt")
****************************
"Now is that what group of people in our society call "Bling Bling."
Hmmmmmm....................
Intresting"
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