Nice way to clean/ brighten the UIM
 

I was tired of my UIM lookin old and grimy so if you want it to look kinda shiny and new looking again here you go.
What you need: Steel wool, Engine degreaser, wire brush, wet/soap towel, dry towel, aluminum cleaner or polish
What to do: 1) Wire brush the UIM, get it everywhere but dont go for too long 2) Spray engine degreaser 3) Use the steel wool and get everywhere on the UIM, it will leave particles of the steel wool and look gunmetal 4) Wipe this down with your wet/soapy towel 5) Repeat 2-4 until you get it pretty close to what you want 6) apply aluminum cleaner or polish and wipe down
It should be nice, clean, and bright silver now. I will post pics of before and after in about 10 minutes.

I got in the habit of spritzing my UIM with a water spray bottle after track sessions to cool it off, and after a couple times, it basically steam cleaned it... looks great. At one point i used alluminum cleaner toho, and that worked too

Got pics?

it goes from before>>>after. Sorry for the pics i just did, it shows shows how shiny they are but not much of a difference between how clean from before to after.

bead blasting works nice too.

Yeah I have an extra LIM, UIM, TB so I bead blasted them and Im hand sanding them and polishing them....lots of work

I didnt even remove the UIM though. It took me like 20-30 min. I was just trying to get it looking nice, new, and a lil shiny. Worked for me. What the hell is bead blasting. Havn't heard of it.

I was just giving you a hard time. Sorry. Bead plasting is like sand blasting but with a beads :) I am doing a upper and lower manifold right now as well.

That's a damn good job DMoney! Especially with the tools you used and the fact that you didn't even have to remove the UIM. I know what I'm doin' when I get some spare time....

Ya, I would rather just save my money than get someone to polish my UIM and LIM. I mean i know ceramic coating it is benificial but its just not one of those things i care for. Im sure if you sand, steel wool, wire brush, and polish the UIM a lil more than i did it will look really polished. I kinda want this to be a sticky because it took me some searching and came up with nothing. For the saved money and time you get from doing this i think its worthy. But hell what do i know. So dont flame me for the last comment please.

Im gonna get some better pics tomorrow.

I'm a fan of clean, nice looking cast aluminum parts. Unfortunately, it's VERY hard to keep it looking nice - anything abrasive will polish the part to some extent. Bead blasting is one of the few ways to do it.

You actually use glass beads to clean the part - doesn't look like beads that you'd think, actually it's like a very fine sand in appearance and texture. Harbor Freight sells blast cabinets for around $100 or so - it's just a large cabinet that has gloves and a blast nozzle.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=38440

You do have to have an air compressor, though. But, bead blasting a part can clean up stuff like you wouldn't believe.

Your UIM turned out really nice, though! Little work like that in the engine bay can really clean things up and make it much nicer.

Dale

Thanks Dale. Put this on your site if u want.

I thought you would use walnut shells on soft metals like aluminum? I could be wrong.

If you were stripping paint off of a skin of aluminum (or any thin metal) you could use walnut shells.. they do less damage to the metal underneath and don't heat up so much. With the UIM as beefy and rough as it is you can use whatever you want to blast it. Glassbead is more aggressive and will cut the crap quicker.

I polished two UIM/TB using my Dremel/Drill and some sanding discs and buffing wheels. It is not and easy job to do. It must have taken over 20+ hours in total to do each set. Good thing I was unemployed at the time:).

Here are some more daylight pics

BTW, steel wool is my new best friend. Look at the alternator and you can see a part of it that i started to work on. Then i noticed that the metal shavings from the wool were being attracted to it since its an electric motor. When i have alot of spare time i will take the alternator off and clean it like i did my UIM. Now im going back outside to do the rear turbine intake.

that looks great actually... BTW wouldnt just be easier to steam clean it? or dunk it in boiling water for a while? any thoughts?

It probably would but I didnt remove the UIM. It just took me about 30 min. so I think its pretty reasonable. Now i cant wait to do the Alternator and repaint my strut bar.

oh, looks good anyway, good work

Wow, 459 views. This is one of my most popular threads. LOL. D$ likes! :) Also, I did the rear turbo pipe. It was getting dark so i really couldnt see it that great. First thing I'm doin tomorrow morning is checkin it though.

Wow, that DOES look really nice... I'm gonna have to do that to mine til I get it polished. Great job man!

When you get finished with them give us an idea of how many hours you wind up with in doing them and the results. Not to mention how your hands and arms feel while your doing it. (-:

Steel wool won't be your best friend when all the little steel pieces get into you alternator and cause it to fail. You do realize all the little sttle particles will begin to cause rust stains everywhere they land, collect, and get wet. I have to admitt it looks worlds better. I'm just hate to say that using steelwool with parts still in the engine bay will be really hard to clean out and will deffinately start causing rust stains, after all you did use soap and "water" as well so it won't be long before you start seeing the rust.