Honda Motorcycles - FireBlades.org banner

Polish fuel cap

3K views 21 replies 8 participants last post by  IanDoohan 
#1 ·
Any idea if a 93 RR’s fuel cap is aluminum and if it would take well to hours of hand polishing to a mirror finish? I want to keep my original cap but don’t want to pay a local shop $450 plus tax to get it chromed. Found two local shops doing this kind of work and the pricing nowadays is sure astronomical. Worst case, any experience out there with chrome-like spray paint? Would I be happy considering the rest of my bike is near perfect? Thanks for reading.
 
#8 ·
If curious, here's what my petrol cap looks like presently. And at least in the US, a $120 USD hourly bill rate is the going rate for professional services like this. The local outfit by me who wants $450 for the job is highway robbery though. Still, I'm going to take the laborious route myself this Winter;).
 

Attachments

#10 ·
Ian, it’s a cheap sticker to cover the uglier spot on the cap. I had this cap chrome plated cheaply about 20 yrs ago. Looks awful today. I polished the frame and wheels on this bike by hand about 20 yrs ago and try to keep it fresh every season. I had some help getting the white removed from the wheels. The main frame spars are still near mirror finish, but the rest shows its age for now. Old man patina I guess. I did so with only the fairings removed originally. I’ll put up some photos soon. Since the cap is aluminum too, I now know, it should be doable to fix this. I bought this ‘93 model in Aug ‘92 in the US. I painted the original fairings and tank yellow and white after upgrading to a ‘97 front fairing in ‘01.
 
#16 ·
Well I can save you some time. Or maybe not. I've got a aftermarket gas cap that had the CBR logo on it but it was black. I had taken the black off tried engraving around the logo and gotten my feel of it. So I wet sanded it by hand and by grit in stages. I'll give you the gas cap. If you buy the gas tank I wanted to sell with it. In all seriousness though they look good but it to much up keep on polished metal's for me. Just my opinion,I'd go with chrome. I polished the rims on my 954 and man their a pain to to keep em looking good. But I'm kinda (really) picky.
 
#21 ·
Little funny story from about 2 decades ago. I did this to a Honda VTR250 cap which looks like the caps on the fireblade, but it is a solid cap that comes completely off the tank



I started wet sanding it with like 800grit then went to 1200grit and finished with 1500grit and hit it with the Mothers Polish in between each of those. Took several days to do it and when it was done it was just like a mirror!


Well what I didn't pay much attention to was the flip tang that you put your finger on to pull up and expose the keyhole underneath. All that sanding had turned the leading of that that tang into a razor sharp edge and the first time I went to pry it up with my finger it cut me damn near to the bone!




EDIT found an old pic of it albeit not a very good one, did the bar end weights the same way then clear coated them to keep them from getting water spots etc
 

Attachments

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top