Now if you suffer from OCD (compulsive hand washing etc) then cleaning a cacky dirt bike may light your candle. Sadly this is the really dull part, but we will tackle it like men...

	Ok, so here is the starting point - algae infested alloy! Now I've seen plenty of corroded alloy, but this is the first time I've come across algae, so we can assume the bike spent a fair bit of time in the damp. The good news is that the algae comes off easily, unlike the corroded alloy.
	The worst corroding on the alloy components was on the forks and top yokes. As you can see from the pictures we achieved a reasonable finish on the legs without too much effort. What we did was to first strip off the layer of lacquer using paint stripper (easy) and then simply rub the legs down with 1200 grit wet and dry paper for about 15 minutes per leg. Be careful with the wet and dry and avoid using too much pressure in a single area. Having removed the worst of the corrosion we then attacked the leg with an alloy polish (Peak) and voila!
	The top yoke proved more difficult as you couldn't get the wet and dry into the complex casting so we used a Dremel multi-drill (small craft type drill) with a felt bob and some polish. This took a while to get going but we ended up with a good finish (after a lot of trying).
	Small and complicated castings like the carb are a bit more difficult to clean effectively, luckily they don't tend to corrode as much as they aren't as exposed. If they aren't too bad then a vigorous wash with a stiff plastic brush in hot water and washing powder can do the trick, CIF liquid is also a good cleaner as it is fairly abrasive and cheap.
	The inside of our carb was worse than the outside and as you can see from the cleaned up version the pitting is considerable. We cleaned this with the dremel with a small brass brush attached as we needed to be sure that all the corrosion was removed (see strip for a before picture) to avoid cack getting stuck in the jets etc.
	One of the worst jobs is cleaning the shock springs. If somebody knows of an easy way of doing this please let us know. We started off with a wire brush to clean the outside of the coil, but we couldn't get a brush that was small enough and stiff enough to get at the inside of the coils so we ended up getting emery cloth and wrapping it around the coil and working it up and down the coil...tedious and you can easily miss bits, but after a few hours the things start to look a bit cleaner
	With smaller steel components we just dipped then in Hammerite rust remover overnight and then brushed them down where possible. These footpeg springs show the before and after - OK they don't look like new but they are clean and rust free with a minimum of effort.

and here's the plan...

1 Get a Bike... 2 Strip It 3 Clean it 4 Paint it 5 Seat 6 Engine 7 Frame and Suspension 8 Test it 9 Race it

Parts list & Costs

The costs so far...

To clean the bike you'll need some decent degreaser we used Halford's own brand (all we could find) which cost £4 but did include a small brass brush which came in very handy. People use paraffin and petrol, but as I tend to chain smoke when I'm doing this stuff I tend not to bother.

We also recommend Hammerite rust remover solution which is great if you are lazy and can't be bothered wirebrushing every last nut and bolt, again about £4 per bottle.