Aluminum siding clean-up & deep clean

[stevegsmith]

Hello all,
I'm in the process of doing a general clean-up / deep clean of my 1955 Benroy. I'm not looking to do a full restoration or polishing, but just a good deep cleaning of the aluminum. It's fairly well oxidized so I'm not expecting a like-new appearance nor do I want that. I just want to bring it back to life and take a bit of the edge off. I don't plan on repainting the red so I'll be mindful of the edge.

Any recommendations regarding processes and/or products would be greatly appreciated.

Much thanks in advance!

[LWW]

When the aluminum wheels on a truck get dull a buffer and some ruge makes them look like new.Larry

[mary and bob]

I use Mother's Mag & Aluminum polish on our '46 Modernistic. Rub it on, rag gets black, wipe it off. You can rub forever, rag still gets black. I don't get a mirror finish, but sun on it will blind you, works great for annoying other drivers.

[Irmo Atomics]

I wet sanded my old aluminum, starting with about 200 grit and working down to 800 grit. Then I used some Brillo pads on it and finished it off with Truck Box polish that I got at Lowe's (on the truck tool box isle). You'll also need a good supply of elbow grease.

[mary and bob]

There are also liquid cleaners available. Trucking companies that run aluminum trailers may use them, I've seen it used at an ADM Milling flour mill on their tank trailers. I actually have some, but I'm afraid to use it on our teardrop as I don't remember what it did to the aluminum, it may have had an etching effect. You should be able to find some at a truck stop. At a recent boat show I bought a can of Prism metal polish but I don't think it's any better than the Mothers. When we were originally stripping paint off our teardrop, we used an air die grinder with those 2" scotch pads to remove what paint the liquid stripper wouldn't take off. That left some swirl marks, and I then sanded with 1000 grit paper, and then the Mothers. The Scotch pads are available in fine, medium, and coarse, I mostly used the blue ones, which I think is the medium.

[alaska teardrop]

Steve, Gord's works well for cleaning & shine. The 16oz. bottle is enough for a teardrop.

http://gordsaluminumpolish.com/index.html

Fred

[stevegsmith]

Thank you all. I'll give it a go and report back.