Painting the axle?

YamaRider said:

I painted mine on the warrior because it was rusted, he's right, the paint will chip up pretty quickly. The axle gets hammered with rocks a lot, both from getting kicked up by the front tires, and from not having enough ground clearance for the big ones. There's really nothing out there that will resist damage from rocks, even powder coat would break down eventually. The paint on mine looked good for a couple rides and after that it started to look like crap again and I had to keep touching it up to keep it looking ok.

Another personal experience, chrome spray paint (like the stuff krylon and rustoleum sell) looks exactly like silver spray paint, it looks nothing like chrome. The metallic part of most silver paints sit on the surface as well, so you can literally wipe/wash off the shine after the paint has dried, and becomes mostly gray with just a slight hint of silver. Can't clearcoat it either, because that metallic residue on the surface will swirl with the clearcoat and make the whole thing look like a mess. There may be some out there that work well, but I never found them. There is, however, some good powdercoat that looks pretty close to real chrome, but it's expensive and it wouldn't go on smooth over the stock axle. The way the stock axle is machined it has a bunch of fine ribs all the way over it, sort of like a guitar string, those will show through. I just used silver automotive paint with no clearcoat, the clearcoat will make it worse to touch it up and get it to blend in once it starts chipping.

Why do you want to paint yours? Is it rusty and crappy looking now or were you just trying to make it look more like an aftermarket axle?

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2000warrior350 said:

two ways to clean ur axle up

sanding and polishing......

faster than waiting ... 180 sand paper... than 320.. than 400... than 0000 steel wool with mothers mag and aluminum polish... than just steel wool.... than rag and polish....

will make that axle look like chrome!!.. might do this on my 200x next time im bored... support it with the rear end in the air.. start it and put it in second gear.. let the motor do the work for me

or an old school trick , it takes a few rides to notice it working but it does work ......

buy a kids size leather belt.

cut them to fit

use some nutnbolt weights to fasten them.

give it about 15 miles or so , b4 it starts to work ...u'll start to see it getting cleaner ..the longer you leave them on the cleaner it gets

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