Thanks Dennis! Well, I have tried to polish the headers now. Took them off and asked my friendly brit-bike-neighbour if I could use his buffer. The blue and most of the gold went away, but it seems like my headers were chromed after all and nor just polished stainless as I thought. I ate my way down through the coating

and to me the headers now look like ape-dung. I even called my dealer and asked how much he wanted for a new pair: SEK5760!!!! That's around USD 800!!!1 Too much just for looks since the function still is there.
Oh well, you learn from your mistakes. At least she's running on both cylinders

Good luck with your painting! I'm sure you'll succeed if you don't hurry it!