Get some thick paint & varnish stripper also some cheap chinese brushes, you can get it all at home cheapo.

Either disassemble and strip, or take off small parts & fender, and tape everything else off. Then paint the stripper on, wait 4-5 minutes, wipe off, and repeat this till the clear coat is totally gone.

Next clean them with something week, like windex.

Last part, buff on Blue Magic with a clean microfiber cloth
(Blue Magic is alum / metal polish, you can get at auto stores. small can is like 6 bux). The polish will turn from blue to black, that means its workin!

Then buff off with a clean micro fiber towel.

When I did the lowers on my last bike, I had to buff blue magic on and off like 6 times till I got the mirror finish.

They looked awesome tho, matched my chrome fork tubes and it cost my about 25 bux and an hour or 2.

Well worth it!

 

You didn't have to sand? Mine had so many casting pits it wasn't funny.

 

Well, there was one area on the left rear, I could have left it.... guess it all depends on how beat or what casing is like...
I sanded that smal area, then used 000 wool.

But I could have skipped the sanding with no problem.

Suppose its case by case.

 

The stripper method works great, but on the OL's bike I went straight to 220 grit on a 1/4 sheet palm sander. I got rid of all casting marks and smoothed over the area at the bottom front. FigureFinishing.com took over from there, polishing them on an industrial buffing wheel. They look fantastic!




During:


This stripper, "Aircraft Remover" by Kleanstrip.com from Auto Zone, works very well on the factory clear coat:


I went with powder coating on my bike. Again, FigureFinishing.com delivers. The powder coating was much easier 'cause all I had to do was disassemble the lowers, Len took over from there. You could say I like powder coat:


If you have more than 1000 miles on your factory fork oil, you'll want to change the oil anyway. That oil will come out black as night. It's a great time to swap out the fork springs for a better ride, too.

 

Did you mean 10,000 miles.

Thanks for the tips all. Still thinking about what to do.
May wait till winter : )

 

A wrape might work, but you will never get it to look right by the fender and caliper mounts. I say polish, paint or powder cost them.

 

Not a typo.
I've drained the fork oil out of a few bikes that were well under 10k miles and it comes out looking surprisingly dirty. I don't know what it is about the manufacturing process, but the factory oil seems to get dirty quick.