Preparation motorcycle parts before DIY plating

Preparation is the most important step in the whole nickel plating process. If you want high quality plating almost all the sanding, buffing and polishing is done before plating. After lots of trial and error I finally found a good way to prepare the bolts and other parts of the bike.

Original bolt before preparation and plating

1.Get rid of the major pitting.

I used the bench grinder to carefully shave off a thin layer. If the pitting is really bad/deep it maybe better to start with a new bolt from your local hardware store and turn this one into an "original" bolt.

Removing pitted top layer motorcycle bolt

If you have a bigger part that's pitted you can also use a belt sander. I used it to get rid of the major pitting of the down pipe of my Yamaha 100 LS3.

Rusted down pipe Yamaha 100 LS3

Rusted down pipe Yamaha 100 LS3

Rusted front fork Yamaha LS3

Belt sander used to remove pitting from down pipe

2.Get rid of the existing plating.

Zinc plated items can be pickled in hydrochloric acid, but chrome plated items are a bit harder to de-chrome. You can try it by sanding or grinding but also with electrolysis. You need a plastic tub big enough for your item, a couple of metal rods or plates, copper wire, carbonate/washing soda, water and a battery charger. I put the four metal rods in the corners of the tub and connected them with the copper wire. Then I filled the tub with water and mixed ca. 500-750 gram washing soda in it (the more the better ;). In the middle of the tub I put a metal rod so the bolts can be connected with copper wire. Make sure the copper wire from the neg (black -) doesn't touch the pos (red +) rod hanging over the tube. I played it safe with some ductape. Now connect the battery charger and switch on the power. You'll see the items hanging on the pos(red +) rod will start bubbling. It will take a couple of hours or maybe a day (depending on the type of battery charger) to remove the chrome plating. It won't damage the bare metal parts. I also tried baking soda but I think washing soda works better.
As soon as you switch on the power the solution turns green.

Remove chrome plating with washing soda

Underneath the chrome plating you'll find nickel or copper plating (with most parts). If you give this a good pickle there's not always a need to remove this layer as well. However, if you also want to remove the nickel layer (plating over bare metal is always better..) I use the following recipe:

Take a plastic or glass tub and make a solution  water and hydrochloric acid. Add 30 ml (30%) hydrochloric acid for each Litre of water.
Grab a piece of pure lead and hang it into the solution. Connect the Neg (black -) with the lead Cathode and the Pos (Red +) with your item. Within 1 hour all the nickel will come of like aluminium foil. For the lead Cathode I used bead sinkers for fishing and made a "necklace" with copper wire.
Don't leave your part to long in the solution as it will result in pitting of your metal part. Try to keep the current low to avoid quick pitting. An old laptop charger will work better than a car battery charger.

Be careful with all those chemicals . Wear gloves, goggles and a mask. No responsibility accepted.

Tip: If you need to remove some rust, just swap the pos and neg wire of the washing soda solution.

Get rid of the old chrome plating

Initial set up -removing nickel plating

Half of the nickel plating removed (took ca. 20 minutes),
I turned the fork 180 degrees to remove the other half

Because the neg wire got very hot (with the car battery charger
 I used a piece of wood as insulator for the plastic tub

removing old nickel plating from headlight bezel with lead cathode

3. Sanding

If you want a high quality mirror like finish you have to sand your part. If it's still really pitted, start with grit 80, then 120-240-360-400-600-800-1000-1200-1500-2000. That's what I did with the rust pitted down pipe and all the pitted bolt heads. It took my a couple of hours to get  a mirror finish on the down pipe. There were still a couple of pits, but sanding them down would make the metal very thin, so I just sanded the sharp edges off.

4. Acid Pickle

After everything is really smooth and shiny I dip the parts in Hydrochloric acid for a couple of minutes. Then rinse with water and dip the parts in Deox-Ionize, a sulphuric acid. After the acid dipping rinse well with water and wipe the object with wax and grease remover, connect it to the copper wires and put it in the nickel electrolyte. All these steps have to be done as quickly as possible to prevent flash rust.
BTW: Never try to pickle cast iron!!  It's porous and you'll never be able to get rid of the acid which will eat it's way trough the cast iron part and eventually destroy it.
Also; don't store your acid inside the shed. Even if it's in a locked container it will get in the air and attack every metal part in your shed.

5 Start plating

Now you can start nickel plating. Smaller parts, like bolts, can be plated in 60 minutes. For bigger parts like the down pipe I go for 90 minutes. If you want you can also plate the bolts for 90 minutes, this will give a  them a thicker layer of nickel. Parts with a bigger surface need some extra time because the same current has to cover a bigger area. If you want to calculate the plating thickness see http://yamaha-ls3.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/calculating-thickness-nickel-plating.html

Yamaha LS3 down pipe after plating

Yamaha LS3 down pipe after nickel plating

As vintage (I mean very vintage ;)) exhausts used to have a nickel plated finish I'm not to worried about not having the chrome plating on top.
Btw; did you know that the famous Rickman frames were nickel plated ?

6. Buffing and polishing

Right after you take out the parts of the electrolyte, rinse them with water and polish them by hand or with a bench buffer/polisher. Otherwise the surface will turn dull within a couple of minutes.

7. Treating with A-Glaze

To prevent the nickel plated parts from oxidizing I treat them with A Glaze. This will last for a least 5 years. I'm not sure if the A Glaze can handle the heat from the exhaust so I left the down pipe as it was.

DIY Nickel plated front forks Yamaha LS3

Original bolts after preparation and nickel plating

Rebuilding front wheel Yamaha LS3

The original brake shoe plate of the front wheel had a broken cable holder that was glued together a long time ago. When I tried to take the cable adjuster out, the holder fell apart.

Old broken brake shoe plate Yamaha LS3

I could try to repair ir but I found a nice cheap NOS one on Ebay.
All the parts inside the old brake shoe plate were still in good nick, so all I had to do was take it out and fit it into the new NOS brake plate.

Speedo gear inside brake shoe plate

After removing the brake shoes and brake camshaft I took a nice round spanner and carefully pried out the seal.

Removing the seal inside the brake shoe plate

After that it was a matter of removing the circlip and you can take almost everything out.

Exploded view of parts inside brake shoe plate

Almost, there is one thing you need a special tool for and that's the speedo gear. It's screwed deep inside the brake plate and you cannot remove it with a screwdriver or "normal"socket.

Gear speedo meter Yamaha LS3

As I didn't have the "special" Yamaha tool I made one myself. A 32/17 socket fits perfectly in the opening, so I took one from an elcheapo set I had lying around, took some measurements, put it in the vice and shaped it so it would fit in the gear's bushing.

Tool to remove speedo gear inside brake plate

Another exploded view of parts inside brake shoe plate

Before I put everything back in the new brake shoe plate I gave it, and the rest of the hub, a nice good buff.

Polished hub and brake shoe plate Yamaha LS3

Greasing the speedo gear

Speedo parts back in place

Hub front wheel Yamaha LS3

Time for some lacing. See for how to:
http://yamaha-ls3.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/rebuilding-and-lacing-wheels.html

Spokes and hub front wheel

With the new rim and spokes the shaft and metal dust cover looked really dull and tired so cleaned them and gave 'm a new shiny coat of nickel.

Nickel plated shaft and dust cover front wheel Yamaha LS3

Front wheel and shaft Yamaha LS3

Front wheel and shaft Yamaha LS3

Rebuild Front wheel Yamaha LS3

Rebuild Front wheel Yamaha LS3

More DIY Nickel plating

After my first Nickel plating experiments I've changed a couple of things. First of all I bought a bigger glass baking dish so I could plate bigger stuff. I also swapped the iron tie wire for pure copper tie wire, it won't rust like the iron tie wire did after a while (contamination of the electrolyte). And I bought 2 meters of copper wire, stripped the insulation and all of a sudden I had 12 meter pure copper tie wire :)
Remember this is quality nickel plating Without buying an expensive kit, just some cheap household products and a nickel welding rod.

Making copper tie wire

Now I had to cook some more electrolyte. I still make it in the smaller jar because that seams to work well. The 100% pure nickel rods are now showing their abuse; pitted and getting thinner.

Wear out nickel rods

After 5 batches or so I had enough to fill my bigger electroyte bath. I used another pure nickel welding rod as the new Anode. I bent it a bit so it would be over the whole height of the bath and to make it easier to connect it to the pos (+) wire of the phone charger..

Bigger electrolyte bath for nickel plating

After a plating test with an old useless bolt I took the front brake lever of the bike and started the preparation. I think this is the most important step! Clean and smooth objects will give the best most shiny plating results. Always start with a general cleaning, scrubbing and wiping your piece with wax and grease remover. Next I dipped the lever for ca. 5 minutes in Hydrochloric acid (HCL), this will remove all the left over old zinc plating. It will also remove surface rust etc.

Hydrochloric acid for cleaning metal and removing zinc plating

Best to do this outside because it bubbles like crazy and I think the fumes aren't too healthy...

Dipping zinc plated rear foot peg in Hydrochloric acid

Then I rinsed the to be plated part with water, dipped it for 3-5 minute in Deox-ionize, to prep it for the plating, now rinse again with water and put it in the electrolyte solution straight away before you get flash rust. Connect the copper tie wire withe the metal rod hanging above your bath. The first couple of times I connected the Neg (-) wire  with the rod through a thin copper wire. It worked but later on I connected the Alligator clip directly to the metal rod and this improved the plating results. After 25 minute or so I took the lever out, rinsed it with water and polished it for a couple of minutes. Looking good!

Front brake lever Yamaha LS3 being nickel plated

Nickel plated front brake lever Yamaha LS3

Nickel plated front brake lever and polish alu hub Yamaha LS3

The next day I started polishing some stuff after the cleaning/preparation cycle but before plating. After polishing I repeated the whole cleaning and dipping preparation cycle. It made a big difference. It looks better and I've read that the nickel will bond better if the to be plated surface is smooth. It's pretty hard to catch the plating results but believe me it's looking good!

rear foot peg Yamaha LS3 before plating

Nickel plated rear foot peg Yamaha LS3

Nickel plated rear foot peg Yamaha LS3 1972

Nickel plated rear foot peg Yamaha LS3

Springs and other parts middle - and side stand

Nickel plated springs and bolts middle - and side stand

Polished and unpolished nickel plated bolts tension bar Yamaha LS3

Tension bar Yamaha LS3 before plating

Tension bar Yamaha LS3 before plating

Polished  nickel plated bolts and tension bar Yamaha LS3

Polished  nickel plated bolts and tension bar Yamaha LS3

Polished  nickel plated bolts and tension bar Yamaha LS3

The tension bar I nickel plated didn't fit in my electrolyte bath so I did it in two steps. You absolutely cannot see the overlap. It looks like it has been plated in one go.

Nickel plating in two steps

I also nickel plated the wire adjuster of the autolube pump. It was rrrrrrrusty, if you take a closer look you can still see some light pitting.

Rusty Autolube pump wire adjuster

Nickel plated Autolube pump wire adjuster

Adjusting bolt an nut

Nickel plated adjusting bolt and nut

After a couple of days the metal rod above the electrolyte bath started to discolour, the vinegar acid must have bitten it ;) So I replaced it with a piece of copper pipe which is also better for the current flow.
And because I read that the optimum working temp for a nickel bath is around 55 C I went to a charity bargain market last Saturday morning and bought an old but working stainless steel BBQ plate for 2 dollar.

Heating-the Nickel plating electrolyte

Another thing I did was filtering the electrolyte. I used an old plastic coffee filter with a paper filter inside.

Filtered Nickel plating electrolyte

Before plating I now wet sand the parts with 600/800-1200-1500 grit. I know it's a bit fiddly but if you want good results it's worth the extra couple of minutes work.

The plating results are even better than before. After a light buff it's a mirror finish.

Pan head screw - engine cover - before DIY Nickel plating

Nickel plated pan head screws engine cover Yamaha LS3

Nickel plated pan head screws engine cover Yamaha LS3

Nickel plated bolt engine 

Mirror finish DIY Nickel plated bolt

Rear wheel shaft, sprocket shaft, collars

Nickel plated Rear wheel shaft, sprocket shaft, collars Yamaha LS3

DIY Nickel plated sprocket shaft Yamaha LS3 1972

Another thing that I plated were a couple of new Yamaha bolts I ordered for the brake and clutch levers. The original chrome bolts were quite rusty and pitted. But when I received the "original" bolts they looked totally different, only the size was right. First of all they weren't chrome plated but zinc plated, secondly there was a number (6 or 9) on top. They call it "superseded" what means that the original part has been replaced by a useable newer/better part, I learned this the hard way... Yuk, they really looked like simple construction bolts from your local hardware store.

So I took one of those superseded bolts, dipped it for a minute in hydrochloric acid and carefully grinded the top smooth. Then I sanded the head with 600-1200-1500 grit sandpaper and nickel plated the bolt.
Looks way better, very close to the original chrome plated bolt.

Superseded, modified and original bolt Yamaha

Superseded, modified and original bolt Yamaha

Same thing with the cable adjuster bolts and nuts. The superseded ones have the same shape as the original ones but were painted black (poor paint job) instead of being zinc or chrome plated.

Superseded cable adjuster nut and bolt Yamaha

So I dipped them in hydrochloric acid for 10-20 seconds (that was enough to remove all the paint).

Removing the black paint with Hydrochloric acid

20 minutes in a Nickel bath did gave them the finishing original touch.

Plated cable adjuster nut and bolt Yamaha

Nickel plated cable adjuster nut and bolt Yamaha

For more info about preparation see: http://yamaha-ls3.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/preparation-motorcycle-parts-before-diy.html