Want to anti rust and repaint my exhaust

[Lord Derosso]

Can you anti rust an exhaust??

I was so pleased with the ceremic black paint I used to touch up a spot on my engine, I am keen to clean up the exhaust and repaint it after proper pre work. It has a bit of suface rust and a bit more in patches around the welds on the bottom, which is understandable since thats were it gets most of the weather and road effects etc, but otherwise seems ok. To add life and looks though I am keen to get it sand blasted in places and use the ceremic paint to get a good finish. Can anyone let me know what is the best way to detach the exhaust and do the repaint etc please?

The paint says apply first two coats within one hour and a final three days later. I would have to cover the engine and presumely place oiled rags in the exhaust holes during this period. It may sound a bit simple but I haven't done this before and don't want to F things up. Of course I might be able just to clean it up underneath and apply several coats to protect the weld areas etc but would rather do the job in full and get a great result. HELP please.

[Pwalo]

The only way that you can get a good finish on your pipes is to take them off the bike, remove the old paint (wire brush, sand blasting or however you like), and respray them.

It's a bit of a pain but you can only do touch ups whilst they are on the bike.

If your pipes aren't too bad you can cheat like I do and use a stove polish on them. Rub it on, polish it off and it's all good. I do mine every weekend, but I will need to bite the bullet this summer and give them a proper repaint.

[Postie]

I bought some rust convertor when I did the exhaust on my CBR400, I removed the whole pipe and coated it with this rust convertor I bought from Mitre10. It chemically changes the rust to make it like metal again, you can sand it and repaint it.

[Lord Derosso]

So its not a big hassle of a job then??
From what I can see, the exhaust is only held by the side bolts and of course the frontal outlet bolts. Its a standard four into two with a balancer pipe towards the middle directly under the bike fairing. I presume it safest to remove the header pipes bolts first, have the pipes supported by someone and then remove the two side bolts, then push forward and free it that way. Might need to take the lower side covers though? . What I am worried about is keeping the header holes clean whist the paint is drying for a few days though I suppose I could get around this by rebolting the exhaust on after the initial two quick sprays and then going through the whole process for the final main 'wet' coat. I would appriecate if anyone can advise me if theres anything i need to be careful about or is this a pretty straightforward job. Cheers

[Postie]

its not a big job at all really, just what ever you do, don't over tighten the header/flange bolts else you will be needing someone to tap and dye a new bolt hole for you. When you take the bolts off, you might want to give them a good soak in CRC for a minute just to losen it up, and when you put the bolts back on, you don't need to make them too tight at all, as they get really hot and expand, if they are too tight, they will snap the heads off the bolt, and your back to getting it tap and dyed. Don't worry about it being too loose, you will see and smell the exhaust gasses if it needs to be tightend a bit more.
This is advice I did not take, I broke two head bolts off when I was putting my CBR pipes back on.

[Lord Derosso]

With the pipe off is there anything I need to avoid with the open ports? I am not silly and will do my best to avoid crap falling into the ports but if I put rags in the ports is it OK to spray them with CRC or do you dip them in oil or what. I know this all sounds simple but I would like to avoid getting too much muck in the barrells as I have only just passed the 5000 km mark. The bike hasn't had much use the last seven years...... but I would still like to get the exhaust back into top order. Was even thinking of trying to get a different colour like ceremic blue which I reckon would look cool with the metalitic gold of the fairing etc. Then again, just be happy to keep the bike in A1 original style.

[Postie]

a clean rag would do just fine, as will news twisted news paper, so long as its not gonna get wet. You could spray some crc on the rags, thats probably not a bad idea.
Also if you get the rust converter stuff, you need sand it back else when you paint the pipes, anything unber the paint that is not heat proof, will release itself taking bits of paint with it.

[degrom]

What paint are you going to use? The high heat paint usually have to be baked or run in at idle for very long periods. Making it a bit hard to paint exhausts on air cooled engines that will last if you don't have an oven.

I would also like to know if there are other ways of doing this...
Cheers

[Lord Derosso]

I got a can from Repco in Kent Terrace by the Basin Reserve. Been meaning to go in there for ages. Got all sorts of handy things for the bike besides car stuff. The paint I used on the engine is 500 degrees ceremic and is designed for general high temp areas and especially engines and exhausts going on the instructions and picture on the can. Its done a great job on the small patch of the engine I needed to retouch. According to the instructions you do two light coates within one hour and then leave it to dry for three days then another one or more 'wet' coat. It drys to the touch in one hour. I left my engine for seven days before using the bike again and its perfectly fine. No residue or flaking etc so I cant see the need to 'bake' the paint once its been applied so long as you follow the insturctions. After all its 500 degree plus ceremic paint so I doubt the exhaust would come close to that.