I'm now well into the '07 refurb exercise.

Sorted out the exhausts (with elbow grease!), spokes are in to be acid-bathed and plated, fork stanchions sent to be re-hardchromed, everything else I'm basically sorting out meself as I go.

BUT, I've hit a snag with my hubs. They weren't (aren't) in good nick, and I was wondering if anyone else here has gone through the pain of trying to clean these puppies. I've considered bead-blasting and/or more acid baths. I have already tried elbow grease and autosol / alusol, various grades of water-paper, and everything else in between including steel wool, pot scourers, Zeb oven cleaner, spray-oil in combination with all sorts of scouring utensils etc etc.

Those hubs seem impervious to cleaning. They also seem to be painted or plated or summink? Or is that my weary phosporic acid soaked brain speaking?

So, any suggestions? I'm not gonna buy new ones, these are fine, just in a bit of a state cosmetically.

Key em and paint in a hardwearing paint like hammerite... spraypaint (not hammer finish) will give a nice amooth result. That's what I would do anyway. Good luck bud: )

Feck, excuse my ignorance, but what do you mean by "Key them"?

Basically you need to make the surface you are painting able to take paint... but by 'keying' the item you are also cleaning up the surfaces.
get hold of some water paper 120 grit and 180 grit rub down your item for paint first with the 120 (rougher) you can use water on the paper to make life a bit easier but you need to be sure that by the time you have finished it off with the 180 paper you are ready to clean out all the sanding swarf you will create... then you can go ahead an spray it. it needs to be noted that if the surface aint too bad you can generally just give it a clean with white spirit, let it dry fully and then just get a couple of dust coats on it and build up your paint slowly, that should give you a pretty good finish... alternatively if you know of a good powder coater that is an easier but slightly more expensive route to take... the finish with powder coating will be beautiful and probably more hard wearing depending on the quality of the coaters work...
good luck mate.

Thanks Feck, that was sort of what I thought and had in mind, elbow grease and grit. Of course I might take it to be bead blasted, might be quicker, and then get them powder coated. Or summink ....