D Car — November 2003
An archive project by Flock MFGNew issue alerts →
About this issue
250 available scans from D Car — November 2003, in right-to-left reading order. Japanese OCR and English translation drafts are available throughout. Drafts have not received exhaustive image proofreading; unreadable source remains recorded in the archival data.
Page 88 — English draft translation
Tools cannot easily reach areas nearby, so you have to work by hand or use a small rotary tool. A perfect finish can take several days, but even polishing just the upper area around the cam-cover lettering makes a big difference to its appearance. This upper-surface polish is a good beginner project. The key is not to polish only one spot: divide the surface into broad sections and finish each section evenly…
I had been doing it this way, but there is also a kit that comes with the polishing compound. The product shown here is an offset sisal wheel: a round pad mounted on a disc, supplied with two kinds of polishing compound. Its advantage is that even a first-time user can get close to a mirror finish in one step. When polishing with a high-speed disc sander, the work area can get hot and develop heat discoloration, or the surface can melt and turn cloudy; the polishing disc also needs to be changed from time to time. The offset sisal wheel has a distinctive shape that helps it cool, so even during continuous work it is less likely to burn the surface or clog. It takes a little longer, but makes it easier to control how much material is removed. The kit includes one disc; use that for rough polishing and buy a spare finishing disc.
Captions and page details
10/10/2003
3
Menu
A stock cam cover is cast aluminum straight from the mold, so its surface is rough and looks dull. By polishing it until it shines, you can turn it into a custom part that looks carefully finished. Polish the cam cover until it develops a gloss…
With an electric sander and…
Polish using sisal abrasive
Give the cam cover a mirror finish… Make it shine brilliantly!
Fit the offset sisal wheel to the disc sander. It spins at high speed, so secure it firmly.
The sisal wheel has trouble reaching curved areas, so…
Polish.
Working the surface down takes quite a lot of effort. Roughness means the surface has bumps and dips, and to bring out a shine you have to sand down to the bottoms of the recesses. If you try to do it all at once with coarse paper, you will only end up with deep sanding scratches, and then…
Rub the abrasive compound onto the sisal wheel. Use the brown polishing compound included in the kit. Apply more while polishing.
Pressing a flap wheel too hard can make it wobble and fly off; take care not to let it strike the cover.
Then you will have to work hard to remove those marks. The more shine you want, the more patiently you need to work. Ideally, polish every part of the cover right into every corner, but around the plug holes and outer bolt holes…
8
Rotate the sisal wheel and press it against the area being polished. Slide it back and forth to polish evenly.
Polish the curved area around the spark-plug holes with a flap wheel…
Use a finer-grit type or a buffing wheel for the finish…
…to finish it.
…that way.
DOHC IG-VALVE
Polish only the area with the words DOHC-16VALVE. The brown compound brings out a shine. On one side…
m01
About 30 minutes
Even a complete beginner can do it! A terrific tool.
The offset sisal kit includes a disc and polishing-compound set: ¥2,360. A spare disc (¥1,980) is also available.
Polishing compound
To make labor-intensive mirror finishing more efficient, power tools are really handy. This time, we used a disc sander. It…
88