engine clean up while in one piece

[mainline]

does anyone have any tips for cleaning up the cases on a bare alloy engine while it is still together?

I've got a vey low hour RL250 motor which seems mechanically sweet but is pretty grubby externally. If I have to split the motor to clean it up I will, but I was wondering if anyone has any magic wand technique for cleaning something like this up while it's together?

[Nathan S]

AliBrite.

[Turtle.Inc]

The original purple polish

[oldfart]

Stay away from the  aliBrite, as the Suzuki cases hate the shit of a stuff. Use paint stripper and a hand wire brush with a bit of good old fashioned elbow grease and it will come up a treat. 

[Doc]

Degrease, 400 wet/dry wet on outer cases,  box or 2 of steelo soap pads for all over then metal polish and a liberal dollop of elbow grease

[Tim754]

"Degrease, 400 wet/dry wet on outer cases,  box or 2 of steelo soap pads for all over then metal polish and a liberal dollop of elbow grease"

OK Doc now show us a piccie of the same bike afters ya cleaned it up......

[LWC82PE]

AliBrite.

Depends
It will attack zinc plated bolts, you would need to replace those with others or mask them off, plus if the alloy has a lot of zinc in it, it wont make the alloy very bright at all and at best you will get a dull/dark grey finish and not a bright silver finish like you would with blasting or polishing. I have never found it to work well on cast alloys that you want to leave bare. Works much better on extruded/sheet/tube alloy eg bull bars and tray tops on Utes/trucks etc.

I would be more inclined to use the Black & Gold steel wool soap pads from the supermarket with plain water once you have got all/any paint & grease off. Some suzukis from mid 70's have the centre cases clear painted over the bare alloy.

[mainline]

Thanks for the info guys.

 When is a good time to drop this engine over Doc? 

[Doc]

Thanks for the info guys.

 When is a good time to drop this engine over Doc? 

  once ya finished the polishing of course