Braided Hose - Engine Dressing

I noticed a metal cooling-pipe at the bottom of the radiator was corroded quite badly and although it is still working fine and will last a while, the whole outside and both collars are well rusted and it looks near impossible to replace, so I thought it might as well be better protected from all the grit, salt and crap coming up through the bumper-grille.

I figured that rather than just painting it, I may as well do a bit of engine dressing while I'm at it so I cut out a piece of stainless-steel braided hose-covering to give the engine a bit more shine and made two collars to fix it to the pipe with ally-tape.

First, I pushed away the flaking surface metal and gave the pipe a rub down with emery cloth, not to the bare metal, but enough to remove most of the surface rust. I then wiped it with a damp cloth and gave the pipe a good, thick coat of Finnigan's No.1 Rust Beater. I wrapped the braided hose-cover around the pipe and looped some aluminium-tape round each end to hold it in place. The stainless-steel cover fits like a glove and should repel most of the grime, hopefully giving the pipe a much longer lifetime.