Polishing Turbo Compressor Cover DIY

4EverBoosted1 · Mar 9, 2014

Hey guys, I wanted to share some insight and do a right up on polishing a compressor cover. I have already completed one cover for my Atmo charger and now I will be doing the cover on my high pressure. If this has been covered before let me know, but I figured I would do a quick write up over the next week or so with pictures and descriptions!

Let me know what you think and if this really interests you! :fordoval: :thumbup:

Crack85 · Mar 9, 2014

Interested!

ncollins64 · Mar 9, 2014

I'm in. Gotta polish mine when I get the truck back.

mind if I smoke · Mar 10, 2014

Sounds good to me. I'm wanting to polish my new one here in the next month before I put it on.

jdgleason · Mar 10, 2014

I'd love to see how it works for you!

Polishing aluminum over the last few days, I've learned a lot. I started off with some 320 grit sand paper, then went to 500, then 800. Then, I went to the polish. For what I was doing, there are 3 steps to that as well... which involves different compounds.

4EverBoosted1 · Mar 10, 2014

Did you ever see my Atmo cover? It came out almost with a mirror finish. ALOT of work though

jdgleason · Mar 10, 2014

4EverBoosted1 said:
Did you ever see my Atmo cover? It came out almost with a mirror finish. ALOT of work though

Negative! I want to see it!

4EverBoosted1 · Mar 10, 2014

jdgleason said:
Negative! I want to see it!

Ask and you shall recieve! Lol

jdgleason · Mar 10, 2014

Teach me! lol

gfulton · Mar 10, 2014

How long did that take Kaleb? It looks great by the way.

4EverBoosted1 · Mar 10, 2014

Thanks guys! It took me about a full day non stop... But that cover is HUGE lol.. So I will for sure do a right up on here for you JD.

Gary if you want yours done I may be able to work on it?

jdgleason · Mar 10, 2014

4EverBoosted1 said:
Thanks guys! It took me about a full day non stop... But that cover is HUGE lol.. So I will for sure do a right up on here for you JD.

Gary if you want yours done I may be able to work on it?

Sounds about right lol

Thanks Kaleb!

4EverBoosted1 · Mar 10, 2014

Haha no problem. As soon as I get the cover ready I will start the write up

jwlandry · Mar 11, 2014

In for this

4EverBoosted1 · Mar 22, 2014

Okay guys I got it finished. Here we go.
First off here is a picture of everything you will need. (Minus a Dremel tool, if you do not have one, you really need to purchase for this project.. It will make for much less of a headache.
List:
Dremel
Mothers Powerball
Mothers Billet Polish
3M Stripping Discs
Sanding stone Dremel bit
Metal finned tool?-- see pics idk how to explain it lol

Sandpaper--320,400,600,800,
1000,2000 grit... Yes it's a lot but each step is crucial.

RESPIRATOR! GOGGLES! Sanding aluminum is extremely toxic so be careful fellas.

Picture--

The first step you will do is remove ANY lettering, serial numbers, bumps, buttons, or any other detail that is raised on the surface. Here is a pic before

And here is a pic after:

Here is a picture of the "metal finned tool" that you will need in order to take the letters and such off.

(Beware of aluminum shards flying at you.. They are sharp lol)

4EverBoosted1 · Mar 22, 2014

Once you have taken all the raised imperfections off the surface, use the sanding stone tool for the Dremel to sort of "level out" the surface. You won't see much difference but it does help to go over everything with this tool.

Now that you have shredded everything off it is now for the most CRUCIAL part. If you haven't noticed already, the surface that has been grinded is rougher than Chit. So this process is the final step of leveling the surface smooth, while also taking out any "Deep" scratches that would show up in your final result.

The tool needed for this step is the stripping disks that hook to your drill. Depending on the size of your charger depends on how many discs you will need (along with all other supplies of course). But I used 11 discs on this little cover and almost 20 disks on my big charger.

Above is the picture of the "kit" that comes to use the stripping discs. In that picture the "ONLY" type of disc you will need is the one in the bottom left corner. The brown one. I picked all this up from oreillys so you should not have any issue finding this kit or the 10 pack of stripping discs that go with it separately.

Once you start stripping down the surface you will notice how smooth it is starting to get.

Also the cover is actually starting to look like something at this point lol...

As I said earlier.. Repeat this process of the stripping discs several times because you will have scratches that are too deep to get out by hand sanding later.. Pic of said scratches is below:

4EverBoosted1 · Mar 22, 2014

Once you are done with the stripping process, the cover will now be ready for hand sanding. -- just a heads up. You should have about 3 hours of work behind you by the time you reach the hand sanding step...

Hand sanding. You will start off with 320 and sand your A$$ off lol.. Sand and sand and sand until every imperfection is smooth and you have something like this:

Repeat that last step with 400 grit..... And then 600 grit.... And then 800.... And so on until you get to 2000 grit. And the more you sand and the more time you spend, the better the final outcome will be. Here is a picture after the 800 grit:

Finally.... Once you have rubbed all the skin off your fingers and you have finished up with the 2000, you are on the home stretch. Time to polish and let the mothers powerball do all the work. Unfortunately I was too excited to take pics of each step of polishing but I figured that was straight forward... Lather up the cover in billet polish and let the drill and ball do all the work. Wipe clean with a microfiber towel and enjoy all your hard work. Sit down and have a beer