DIY painting the ugly, rusty exhaust header?

[macca]

HI all,

I spent a good couple hours polishing most of the exhaust header and then finished it with autosol or whatever it's called (the metal polish). Took the bike out for an hour and it was dark brown again!

I want to paint it, but some of the high temperature paints I've seen advertised require the part to be baked after the paint is applied. I don't have access to any such oven. 

1. Is it possible to paint a part like the exhaust header that is exposed to such high temperatures, by yourself at home without a special baking oven?
2. Do you need to replace the exhaust header gasket when you remove the exhaust header or can you reuse the one there?

Thanks for the tips! I'm very slowly improving the bike (43t rear sprocket on the way, 6mm shock shim, etc etc)

I love this bike.

[kenmoore]

Try using WD40 and various grades of wet and dry.

Labour intensive but comes up a treat.

Start with 800 grade and then 1200.

Then use the autosol.

It will go a nice golden colour, then all you do to maintain it is give it a quick polish very couple of rides.

[kenmoore]

Another pic!

[colinlinz]

I'll let you know with the paint. I just bought some VHT exhaust paint. I didn't read the can that well, so I missed the oven bit. I might be able to make an enclosure with some bricks and use a gas touch to carefully apply heat. Maybe even my hot air gun from my plastic welding set.

[erno]

Hey Ken didnt know Jack Daniels made storm parts

[kenmoore]

Yeh, neither did I until I got on the J.D one night in the man cave and the cogs started whirring!

Then look what happened, helps to keep all the crud off the starter.

Bit of a laugh really, but it works.

[macca]

Do you need to replace the exhaust header gasket when you take it off or can you reuse gaskets if they are still intact? Pardon my ignorance...

In thinking of wrapping black exhaust header fibre glass tape around it if there is no easy paint option...

[madadz]

You do need to replace the gaskets. There a crush seal, so not much of a chance second go round.
Have you looked at ceramic coating your headers?

[vtrstormer]

Mar 23, 2014 1:41:32 GMT 10 macca said:

HI all,

I spent a good couple hours polishing most of the exhaust header and then finished it with autosol or whatever it's called (the metal polish). Took the bike out for an hour and it was dark brown again!

I want to paint it, but some of the high temperature paints I've seen advertised require the part to be baked after the paint is applied. I don't have access to any such oven. 

1. Is it possible to paint a part like the exhaust header that is exposed to such high temperatures, by yourself at home without a special baking oven?
2. Do you need to replace the exhaust header gasket when you remove the exhaust header or can you reuse the one there?

Thanks for the tips! I'm very slowly improving the bike (43t rear sprocket on the way, 6mm shock shim, etc etc)

I love this bike.

Macca....These are the ones I have just cleaned up. The trick is in keeping this way is a good wipe down with Turps to get rid of all the polish residue. This is what turns brown. So polish them up wipe down with Turps and then sit back and say I will never do that again...

[macca]

Vtrstormer they look amazing! I'll need to buy a new gasket before I remove them (I'm told the gasket needs replacing each time you take them off?)

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[vtrstormer]

Thanks macca yes you should replace this each time. just to be sure all potential leaks are plugged up.

A little power drill drill with a polish kit from Supercheap for $15 and a lot of time and patience. They do come up nice and its well worth the effort once you see the change.

[Deleted]

if I could only figure out how to reduce the size of my pics to 1mb. then id show you some blinding header pipe polishing