The front fork sliders on my 1992 400SF have been badly painted in matt black by a previous owner and look rubbish. I want to take them back to the original finish but am not sure what this is. Can anyone tell me if it is silver paint with lacquer; bare aluminium; polished aluminium; brushed aluminium; lacquered; or what?

Any help greatly received - cheers, Mike

It seems to be 'brushed' - which I suspect is actually linished. If you keep or use final finish linished fork legs outside in the UK I don't see them looking good for too long, so I painted my red bike legs. The problem with paint (or lacquer) is that it tears when bolts are tightened against it. I have considered having my other (yellow bike) forks nickel plated, seeing as the left leg leaks this will probably be in the coming weeks if you can wait to see how that turns out. I suspect that it will be too bright for my taste however so other suggestions welcomed here too.

I've found Tetrosyl silver wheel paint aerosols very hard wearing and give a good finish (provided as always the preparation is carefully done).

Thank you Gents. I think I will take the paint off (which is easily done using the edge of a plastic ruler; just shows how well prepped the paint job was....) and then use Scotchbrite strips from the local paint factor to get the brushed/linished look.

I've done this before on a '70s Yamaha and it looked pretty good and near to factory finish. A regular wipe with WD40/ACF50 kept them looking okay for quite some time.

Thanks again.

I finished mine with a rotary Scotchbrite wheel & then laquered with 2 pack. Seemed to look good for the 10 years I had the bike (though not used on salted winter roads)

Well, I've found out why the fork sliders were painted; they are covered in pockmarks and deep scratches that appear to have been filled. So stripping and leaving bare, or even lacquered, is now not an option. Silver paint and lacquer it is then.

I've just painted mine with Rustoleum's caliper paint - great glossy finish and hard, so should resist chipping pretty well - and it's pretty forgiving stuff when it comes to covering a pitted surface