Preventing rust from winter conditions

[braindigitalis]

Hi all.

I just cleaned my bike to find that although it is now only 7 months old the winter has taken its toll on the exhaust and underneath of my scooter. I have been rinsing off road salt with cold water and wiping away general muck on bad evenings and in the autumn I covered all rustable parts in acf-50 which has always helped on my previous bikes. This seems to have helped a little but I am still fighting a losing battle. Leaving my bike in the garage over winter and not using it is not an option as it is my only means of transport. Can anyone please impart any further anti corrosion advice?

Thanks!

[PSchrauber]

Why not use a wax coat, like from Sonax. Here are rattlecans with wax available. You apply the coat after cleaning the surfaces very well than apply the wax and that's all you have to do.

The coat is very sticky and it's not easy to remove but not as difficult as the "car underground" protection. I have used it several times, works as said very good, the treated parts will look dirty very fast but that's due to the sticky coating.

You can remove the wax coat with alcohol, ...

[fullmetalscooter]

Depends if it's black exhaust or not? if it' black then a high temp barbeque paint works well.

[JerryH]

There is not much you can do to prevent the exhaust from rusting. You can paint it if it is paintable, but I have yet to find any kind of coating that won't burn off an exhaust fairly quickly. I have coated headers on cars with a number of different things, everything burned off. I did have an MX bike a long time ago that the exhaust kept rusting on, and it was only ridden in dry conditions. I just kept the pipe coated in oil. Most of the oil would burn off, but if you just keep putting more oil on it it starts to leave a coating. Anyway, it finally quit rusting.

As for everything else made of metal underneath, in addition to washing off the salt, I would also coat everything in WD-40. It works very well at protecting metal from rust and corrosion, and is very inexpensive if you buy it by the gallon and put it in a spray bottle. I live in the middle of the AZ desert, and don't have that problem, but if I did, I think I would have a scooter just for winter use, and save the nice one for when there is no salt on the roads. I know of a couple of people that have a second beater car just for that purpose, while the nice car sits in the garage all winter.

[braindigitalis]

Thanks for the suggestion of painting the exhaust. I have some engine paint that i could use for this, i used to do this on the old bike but it seemed to just flake off after a few weeks so i stopped doing it after a while.

Is WD-40 ok on high temperature parts? I was advised to use ACF-50 for this reason, that its fine on high temperature parts such as exhausts and manifolds...

[JerryH]

WD-40 is fine on anything metal, but it will burn off the exhaust. You just have to keep reapplying it. Or, take a rag and some engine oil and put on the exhaust. It burns off too, but leaves what appears to be a carbon coating, like on a bar-b-que grille. And the more you put on, the more it builds up. Should protect the metal on the back and bottom of the exhaust where you can't see it, might not look too good out in the open.

[Woodsrat]

LPS 3 is a good rust preventative. It's very waxy and is nasty to get on your hands but would probably protect your scoot as well as anything.

I like the tip on coating the exhaust with oil--gonna have to try that one.

[GinoXB]

Have you thought about a ceramic coat? I can talk to my brother who does powder coating. I am fairly certain that there is a ceramic powder coat they use for exhaust, headers and so forth.

[bbishoppcm]

VHT exhaust paint works marvelously. I coat my Helix's exhaust once a year, and it still looks new. It's now 15 years old.

[Big Albi]

Rustoleum do a very good High temperature resistant matt black or Aluminium paint works well on the muffler on my SH 300i even when ridden at high speed for extended period.


http://www.ro-m.com/asp/upload/behee...%207700-gb.pdf