Painting the Stock Header and Pipe on a XR600

[Badkaw2]

I recently bought a 95 XR600 and would like to clean and paint the stock header and pipe. What would be the best way to clean it and what kind of paint should I use? Would the 1200 degree grill paint you can buy at a hardware store work? Thanks in advance for your help.

[AzMtnThumper]

I think I painted my 600 header and muffler with some kind of paint for headers. I think I got it at NAPA but I don't remeber what brand. Worked OK but smelled funny the first couple of rides afterwards.

[bigboredbiker]

I recently painted my headers with 1500 degree VHT paint and they are still ok. You must clean them down to bare metal first tho, I used steel wool and a wire brush in the drill. Make sure that there is no flakes of loose rust anywhere, degrease the surface and it'll be fine. After you've sprayed them, leave them overnight before refitting and running the bike. Don't get the pipes too hot at first, better to run for 5mins then cool off, then repeat a few times to bake the paint on. Good luck!

[creeky]

Marine supply dealers sell Tempo brand header paint that works very well.

[oud31]

Has anyone tried powder coat? I've been kicking the idea around, but just don't know how it would stand up

[grreatdog]

I use somehing way less high tech that works perfectly: Rustoleum High Heat spray paint. The cost is almost nothing and the prep is typical Rustoleum. All you really need to do is wire brush the pipe real well, wipe it down with denatured alcohol and spray it.

You can get a couple of coats done in an hour easy. When you run the bike the first time it will smoke for a few minutes while the paint cures. Then it will wear like iron. When you do chip it and scratch it the touch up will cost you like $3 for another can.

One can was enough to do the whole system on my XL600R.

[bork]

if you take off completely & strip, you might as well have ceramic coated. Also I noticed on a different site about diesels, they gave info on how to do yourself & didn't look very hard. Hardest part of job was getting pipe stripped and clean enough. http://www.thedieselstop.com/contents/getitems.php3?Ceramic%20Coating How do you guys do the clck "here" thingy?

[pigryder]

powdercoat wont stand up but there is a ceramic coating that works awesome and its afordable

[wr450fyamaha]

Has anyone tried powder coat? I've been kicking the idea around, but just don't know how it would stand up

Powder coat is plastic that melts around 500 degrees.....it will melt and probably make a nice cloud of smoke if not start on fire.

[justicedone]

I just had a set of used Hooker Super Competition headers (for my 67 Camaro 383) ceramic coated this week. It cost me $250 from Olympic Coatings in Escondido CA. They came out very very nice, and have a 3yr warranty against rusting and if any time in 3yrs your not satisfied they recoat free. They dont look chrome, just like a polished aluminum look.

I think thats the ultimate way to go, for less heat and more power/longer lasting. Should be bout half that for a cycle header?

Another good company is Jet Hot coatings, but Olympic was local for me

[ship656]

what temps do the header pipes get up to?

[Roadracer Al]

what temps do the header pipes get up to?

Clearly, this depends on operating conditions. Steel glows red at about 1300 farenheit. I've seen an aircooled BMW motor glow the pipes when left to idle at a stop.

I'd say on average, in the 700~1000 degree range.

If you don't want to fiddle around with wire brushing, your local body shop will probably have a sand blaster.

IMHO, stainless is the only way to fly.