June 4, 2002 {

Back to work on the exhaust. This time I brought 80-grit sandpaper, a box of steel wool, numerous rags, and some small wire brushes. Since the sandpaper will strip the chrome very easily, I only used it where the rust was really bad. After every pass, I cleaned the loose rust off with a dry cloth. I used the steel wool on the sections with little or no pitting, since it just falls apart when used on the pitted sections. Though very slow, the steel wool did an excellent job at removing grime and surface rust without damaging the chrome. Not to say that the chrome's in good shape, but until I strip and re-chrome the exhaust, this will do. I spent about 90 minutes on each pipe. The results were better than I expected. The pipes don't look too bad now. However, it's a lot harder to put the pipes back on without a second person helping! After about 45 minutes of fiddling with them, I got them on only to find that the right pipe wasn't on right and was mildly leaking exhaust. Since it was about 10 o'clock and didn't want to bother the neighbors, I left everything as-is and will re-mount them tonight.

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