Not terribly exciting but i spent a decent amount of time into it so i thought id post it. (and nearly sanded down my fingertips ) Anyway this was my first attempt at polishing metal with sandpaper and it turned out pretty well.




I ordered a polished CAI and i knew it would look out of place without something to compliment it. Yeah i guess i could have bought some cheapo strut bar for 60 bucks but ehh whatever. This mod costed me about 5 dollars excluding the paint stripper spray paint and paper towels.




You want to first remove the oem strut bar from the engine bay. The strut bar is held in place by 2 bolts on both passenger and driver side. I believe they are a 12mm bolt.
This is a picture of the 2 bolts you need to remove on both passenger and driver side. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-z...0/IMAG0971.jpg



The first thing you want to do after you take the strut bar out is to tape off the ends where it bolts into the car for a subtle appearance(use painters tape). I taped it off right before the weld in the bar. I highy reccomend this before attempting to sand, as the part that attaches to the car is curved in many directions and would be a nightmare to try to polish.




I started to work on the oem strut bar to make it polished. Ill admit i did something pretty stupid when i first started working on it.. My initial thought was to buy metallic spraypaint in a chrome finish. After trying for a couple of hours to make it apply all smooth i gave up. This was a terrible idea and due to the way the spray paint works, it needs to be applied super thick and at that point the curved strut bar would make the paint drip.




I found some automotive paint stripper in a spray can and i went to town stripping the paint. About 10 minutes later i came back with a papertowl and literally wiped all of the silver spray paint and some of the black oem paint. Sprayed some more paint stripper and eventually all of the black oem paint came off.




I went to autozone and picked up 2 packs of assorted sandpaper from 220-1000(220,400,600,1000). I had 150 grit sandpaper in my basement so i started with that. When you initially strip the black paint off the oem bar its an ugly matte silver color that looks gross.

This is a picture of the assorted pack and paint stripper i used: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-M...0/IMAG0970.jpg

Lowes, HomeDepot, Autozone, Pepboys etc etc have sandpaper. Its not required, but the higher grit you go, the more shine you will get, and at 2000-3000 will be an almost mirror finish. Due to the curved nature of the bar, and how far it is recessed in the bay, i chose to not go higher than 1000. (oh and after finishing 1000 my fingertips were smooth to the touch )



The trick with polishing is to use a crosshatching technique to make the previous scratches harder and harder to see and eventually becoming near invisible due to their small size.



DIRECTIONS:



BEFORE YOU THINK ABOUT POLISHING I RECOMMEND WEARING GLOVES! I didnt wear gloves and my fingertips were smooth to the touch and were just about starting to hurt.



PRESSURE: i didnt apply too much pressure, just enough to scratch the metal, you dont want to over apply pressure and gauge the metal.



HAND APPLY, DONT USE A MACHINE! using belt sanders/orbital sanders, drills, etc etc etc etc etc is a bad thing, with most you cant feel how deep you are scratching and the scratches are not random and you will pay for this in the long run with scratches you wont be able to remove without extra hand legwork.



1. You want to use the 150 grit first and go one direction (i chose straight across from one end to the other) (to make this easier to explain, this will be "left to right") YOU MUST SCRATCH EVERYTHING! there must not be any of the original matte silver poking through.



2. After you have the bar coated in scratches in one direction, proceed to use the sand paper going "up and down". To do this correctly YOU MUST SCRATCH EVERYTHING! there cant be any visible spots of where you scratched "left to right" Scratching "up and down" is definitely more difficult due to the smaller strokes, i seperated the pipe in 3 sections "left middle and right" and went around the left side scratching and then did the middle and then the right.



It is imperitive that this first layer of scratches takes out all of the imperfections in the metal. Ignoring to do this in the first layer means you will have imperfections in the final product.
Ignoring an imperfection using 150 grit sand paper will take twice as much time to try to remove in 220.


My bar had 2 imperfections in the metal that i chose to ignore because they were all on the bottom.. some very light scratches on the drivers side and a small pitting in the middle.
There is an indent in the pipe by where the intake goes, i didnt bother trying to polish the inside of the indent, you dont see it when bolted in, just make sure to get the sides polished.



3. After you used the 150 grit to scratch going "left to right" and then covered all of the "left to right" scratches with "up and down" scratches you are ready to move on to the next grit, the 220. Repeat the process of trying to take out the previous scratches by going in the opposite direction. If you ended with 150 grit going "up and down" then start with the next grit going "left and right"



IT IS IMPERITIVE TO WET SAND AT 220 AND ABOVE.
If you dont know what wet sanding is, well its easy. Get a little tuberware bowl, it doesnt need to be too big, and fill it with water. After you rip the sand paper into a manageable size to use, just dip the sand paper into the water in the bowl. When you stop seeing water collecting on the bar, its time to dip the sandpaper back into the water.
Wet sanding does 3 things, helps preserve the life of the sandpaper from keeping buildup off the of paper, keeps the dust down, and keeps the sandpaper cool.

make sure to remove any water or dried water left on the bar before you sand again.




4. Repeat the process of 1 and 2 using the next grit sandpaper 150->220->400->600->1000



at around 220, you will start to see some reflections if you hold something to the bar.
with each next increase in grit you will see more and more reflections.


I bought 2 assorted packs at autozone but only needed 1 of the packs. If you want, you can go even higher than 1000. I know they make a 2000 and a 3000 by meguires. Im not 100% sure if they make anything higher than that, that is readily available in stores.


I read on a metal polishing forum before i began and one of the "pros" said that if you dont feel like your arm is going to fall off or your fingertips are smooth, do it again because you arent doing it right.


Most people reccomend going from 600 to a polishing wheel using an ebony coated wheel, i didnt have the fancy polishing equipment so i just kept going to 1000 by hand. it worked out fine.


Here are my completed results.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-J...0/IMAG0948.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-6...0/IMAG0949.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-c...0/IMAG0953.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-L...0/IMAG0954.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-G...0/IMAG0955.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Z...0/IMAG0965.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-D...0/IMAG0966.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-3...0/IMAG0968.jpg

EDIT: Its been almost a month, no signs of corrosion. Used neverdull polish a few days after i installed it and just used some more today. Picked up very minimal contaminates on the bar, i dont think its rust. Ill continue to update.

 

OK, you have the metal polished. I know it was a lot of work. Have you thought about how will it be protected from corrosion. A spray clear coat?

 

I forgot to include that, yes. A spray clear will be what comes next.

Another option is to use a metal wax, but requires more attention.

I think you can even get the whole piece powder coated with clear too.

For now, im going to apply neverdull like what i use on my exhaust tip, see what happens and then report back.

 

It will rust even with waxes and crap.
The only way to keep it from rusting for a while is a good clear coat. Not sure how it will hold though, it gets kinda hot in there.

 

haha.. that looks very good man. good job.

 

fyi wet sanding is a bit more than just water and sandpaper, you need a lubricant of sort to prevent hopping from the sandpaper. Most common is a few drops of dish soap.

 

That seems like a lot of work.

 

Looks great! I've actually been wanting to get a new strut that will look better under the hood. This will do the trick! Thanks for sharing!

 

Yo!! that looks sick brother!

 

It's made from carbon steel. It will rust just from moisture in the air, let alone getting it wet from rain etc. Getting it powder oated in hyperchrome silver would make more sense, which still makes less sense than replacing the crappy looking OE bar with a polished aluminum one, or just getting rid of it completel. A number of us race without it.

 

Yes, powder coating would be ideal, though like you said... it looks shitty so i didnt see the point in spending more money than the bar was worth.

Ill try waxing to keep it protected, if that fails on me and starts to rust i will experiment and put a clear on. I dont have high hopes for that due to the heat it receives.

 

For anyone that tries this- there are plenty of high temp clear paints available to protect a polish.

 

yup there are, i never bothered to mess with anything. Every month or so some rust spots start forming, i take my sandpaper and off it comes in 10 seconds.

i heard some good things about "shark hide"

 

Chrome polised JIC Magic strut tower bars run you $37, matter of fact i could have gave you one! Just Sayin. But I totally understand the coolness and pride of DIY.

 

^ lol it wasnt either... just boredom and a quick solution to matching my intake.

send me a pm about that JIC magic strut bar though, im interested.