Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Removing melted stuff from exhaust pipe header

Crap...I thought my motorcycle cover had heat-proof panels. Guess not. Any suggestions for removing melted plastic from my chrome exhaust pipe header without scratching it?

I would find me a soft metal scraper (Brass or Aluminum) run the pipes hot, scrape away as much as you can and polish off the rest when cooled down, anyway, that's what I did with my melted cover mess.

Nail polish remover. and do it while the pipes are COLD .

Covered my bike with a blue plastic tarp once while camping and it got against the header. Next morning rode the bike into town and was able to wipe it off with a rag.

Very fine steel wool worked for me. Takes a while but no damage to headers

May sound odd, but a Mr. Clean Magic eraser does wonders...

I'm sure all those recommendations work. But, i've used Easy Off Oven Cleaner twice. Once, on the muffler (when i bought the bike it had some melted boot leather on it), and once again just a few days ago. I had inadvertently dropped a micro fiber cloth (whilst wiping down the tank) on the header while it was idling and it melted on it like a plastic bag immediately. Crap! Some of it flaked right off, but had to use Easy Off for the rest with a wooden popsicle stick for scraping some of it. Worked like a charm. (Be careful with that stuff and don't get it on paint etc., whilst using it). I sprayed it on some cloth rather than straight onto the pipe.

I ended up getting most of it off using the suggestion to just wipe the stuff off with rag when the pipe was hot. There's still a haze so maybe I'll try the Easy Off. I also may just use steel wool as I was trying it and it seemed to be getting the stuff off but was slow on where it was thicker. I also tried acetone but it had no effect on my melted stuff.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

I wouldn't advise using carbon (mild) steel wool on Chrome or Stainless for that matter, your Chromium alloy pipe s coating can pick up carbon atoms from abrasive contact and lose it's inoxible properties. Using a regular steel brush or wire wheel on Chromium alloys, Stainless parts or S.S. weldments at my work is a firing offense, no, I'm not kidding.

Don't use steel wool. Acetone melts plastic and will in no way harm the chrome finish. Steel wool could ruin your chrome finish.

Melted plastic is not hard to get off, it's the burnt residue, which is probably fused carbon.

Had a blue plastic tarp blow on to my very hot headers. I used a new razor blade and lacquer thinner. I rapped the area with a lacquer thinner saturated cotton rag for about a hour and then just carefully peeled the stuff off with the blade. FYI, for many applications acetone drys too rapidly to work with.

I just sat down with a razor blade and took my time. Then used some good chrome polish.