The Hodaka Club Forum

I am going to mount an 03 wombat set of forks onto my model 94. In the process of cleaning up the forks and trying to get the oxidation off of the lowers. I have been using 000 steel wool, but it is extremely slow going, will take hours at this rate and don't know if my old hands will hold up. My wire wheel on my grinder is too aggressive I think.
So, any tricks out there in Hodaka Land as to what I can use? The pic shows one area that I worked on for 15 minutes, hopefully you can see the nice finished fork under 40 years of oxidation

Consider application of paint stripper - I think there is clear coat on the alloy sliders. Also consider using a brass wire wheel chucked up in an old fashioned 110V drill (higher rpm than battery drill motors).
Ed

I was wondering whether it was a lacquer over the polish. It is very stubborn to remove. If that is correct, then I will need to clear coat them once I am finished?

There is a clear coat on the 03 lowers and the best way to remove it is with paint stripper as Ed mentioned. Clear coat after.
Danny Cooke

Clean as Dan & Ed said. If you wish to make them chrome shiny, you can strip first and then wet sand the aluminum with 800 grit wet sand paper. I did it to the top triple tree and it looks really nice! Then clear coat it to protect the finish and keep the "Shiny!" ; D Victor