I have a lot of marks on the aluminum lower fork tubes. Soap and a sponge does nothing. Maybe what I'm looking at is impact marks on the factory clear coat.

Is there any reason to try to protect the original clear coat or should I just blast through everything with a scotch bright scrub pad?

 

Here's a thread on polishing the lowers.

Or, you can replace them with chrome lowers and not need to polish them again.

 

Thanks. How does the chrome hold up to being impacted by rocks and stuff on road? I would have thought Chrome would be even harder to make it look new again.

I've seen Chrome rims where there are all kinds of impact marks and the chrome is peeling.

 

I replaced my stock lowers with the HD chrome lowers 6+ years ago and the chrome pieces still look like new after 60,000+ miles. It's now a zero maintenance item other than a bit of wax/polish when I do the rest of the bike twice a year.

 

I just sanded mine down and painted them with hammercoat black paint. Look kind of like cast iron, contrasts nice with the gloss black fender.

John

 

Wow, that sounds nice!

 

some folks use balled up aluminium foil and elbow grease.

i use mothers mag and aluminium polish, and in extreme cases add #0000 steel wool