[588 Bantam]

Polishing that to a brilliant finish would only take 10 minutes so that might be another option. Here's an example of a polished oil pressure manifold on our Bantam.

 

[588 Bantam]

Damon,

All we use is a color bar (white compound) and a cloth wheel. As long as the aluminum is in reasonably good condition it polishs up quickly to a beautiful finish. Properly polished aluminum is slow to oxidize so it's pretty low maintenance.

You can get more info here:

http://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/compound3.html

or here

http://www.bright-works.com/store/html/comp.html