My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

I guess I should thank speedfoos for sparking this idea, but I'm planning on taking it to the next step. Whats that step? Its a secret!! But stay tuned, I will show you my steps taken on this project as I do them- including the end result!!

Step 1:
Strip the paint. Seeing speedfoos struggle with the stripper he used, I thought I'd try something differnt. The paint seems like its some baked on industrial coating, kind of reminds me of the paint planes have on them. I headed to Home depot only to be disapointed. But Baxters downtown pulled though for me and had the Aircraft Stripper that I was looking for. The guy convinced me that I didnt need the 1 gallon tin of it, and that the 1 quart tin would be plenty for a valve cover. Pretty isnt it?


http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/7808/dsc00119jq6.jpg

Looks what it did to my brush... serious stuff here.

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/2591/dsc00116dq4.jpg

The damage its done after sitting for about 20 minutes... says to leave it on for 45+ minutes. Although its been about 40 minutes and I dont notice that much more of a difference, but i'm sure its still killing the paint.

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/8277/dsc00118oc5.jpg
http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/623/dsc00115mi9.jpg
http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/8493/dsc00117nb9.jpg

I didnt use all of what I poured in the glass jar, so I put a block of wood on it since I couldnt find the cap, I'll be putting another layer on after I scrub this off. Stay Tuned!!

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

I would use a good drill with a wire wheel on it to take that shit off!
If you don't have that I guess your stuck using a wire brush.
good luck.

what color? or is that a surprise?

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

hes probably going to polish it. and f.y.i., sandblaster owns this project. ive got one of my extra valvecovers in the trunk. ill get some pics up. im doing a black one, a bronze one, and a brushed looking one.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

Having also tried that... not wise. The VC is aluminum, and a stripping wheel will just chew it up.
The thing that worked best was stainless wheels for a dremel. The dremel doesnt have enough oomph to eat the metal away.

The ideal thing to do IMO is bead blast that shit off.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

Just after 9pm... man am I tired. I've been scrubbing the whole time, with only short breaks in-between. Lack of light, fume overdose, bugs, and dinner being ready all forced me to stop for the night. I'd say about 90% of the paint is off- only paint is left in the technical sections. Def need to go steel wool and power tools for the rest. The paint is off, but its really not shining like how I'd like it to. Any suggestions?

Heres a few pics since the last time:

A shot after about 2 minutes of scrubbing after letting the stripper eat away at the paint for a good 40 minutes...You can see its coming off rather nicely.
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/996/dsc00122ze0.jpg

With all the scrubbing, the paint was just junking up and flying off with each stoke... some of it landed on my arm- combined with the sweat, it burned my skin. I had to dig out my jumpsuit! Even though it was 90 degrees outside, I put it on to save my skin. Suited up and hit it hard again. This flick is still scrubbing after the first application of the stripper
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/4898/dsc00123zz7.jpg

The way it rests for the night:
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/5200/dsc00124bs0.jpg
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/6466/dsc00125dj7.jpg


Def needs more work, and then need even more work to get it to really shine. Suggestions on how to get this shine are appreciated! (techniques I can do myself- aka, I don’t have a sandblaster)

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

nice progress. keep up the good work!

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

suggestion... power tools! lol i wish i knew but hey, u said stay tuned so

:subscribed:

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

they have some stuff for chrome polish... it has a chemical in it that you will be able to see yourself in it... i use it to buff uop engines all the time... go to home depot... i think they sell it there

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

sandblaster will give it a dull look like brushed aluminum and make the polishing a bit tougher. to polish it, you need to do it in atleast 3 steps to work out the pores in the surface. thats why it isnt shiney. go to autozone or somewhere and get some course, medium, and fine polishing compounds and a buffer. then buff the shit out of it. i would sand the surface with some 1000 grit sandpaper first just to get the surface slicker and cut down on some polishing time.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

lol if he does do brushed aluminum look or polished then i think i encouraged him. i wanted to try it first but..blah. i think this is gona be a new thing now. i have a feeling were gona be seeing a little time period of eveyrone pimpin out theyre VC's... i got my wrinkle red on now..ill post pics sumtime.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

ive got red on mine now, but it looks out of place. so since i have a set of bronze wheels and painting my other set black, im going to do a bronze one, black one, and a brushed aluminum looking one.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

Well, didnt have time to post before I went to work this afternoon, but I put some more time into this morning. Heres what shes looking like.

https://img241.imageshack.us/img241/...sc00128ub5.jpg

Another 7th gen parked across the street- guess he wanted to see what kind of attention mine was getting! (Will be dropped soon. I dont plan on buying rims anytime soon.)
https://img475.imageshack.us/img475/...sc00129ov8.jpg

See the difference- the work I did today, verses the ending point of yesterday.
https://img370.imageshack.us/img370/...sc00130hx7.jpg
https://img120.imageshack.us/img120/...sc00131pk5.jpg

Notice the metal isnt completely smooth- what to do about this?
https://img355.imageshack.us/img355/...sc00132rk1.jpg

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

Whats this stuff called- any pics of the product packaging?

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

i think ur doing a good job...looks good keep it going!

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

i really like the way that looks, definately great work so far and i look forward to the finished product. i will probably be giving my vc an overhaul here soon too, just have to decide what i am going to do to it - so many options.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

Looking good Triz! Its a real bitch to get that paint out of the mounting bolt holes and from down in between the timing belt cover next to the oil cap. I couldn't get it all out and that's why I painted. I would recommend using a wheel sander on your dremel to smooth out the nasty casting marks on the bottom front as well. I notice your VC says "PMM" and the three I've seen just have an "M". Odd. My primer (underneath the gray) was black too.

I dorked up the clear coat on mine (walked into it and put a forehead print in the middle) so I'm stripping it down and selling it to someone over here as soon as I repaint it red.

Good luck man, getting all that finish off is a booger.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

that looks pretty awesome. good job.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

Look good now get a small buffing attachment for that drill and buff it out it should bring some more shine to it with a good polish for auliminum or metal.

So I suppose this means your not going to paint it?

Triz here is a link to some top notch products not cheep but real top notch, I used a lot of there products on my 79 Jeep restoration and was very pleased, although I have never used their metal polish if it is as good as their other stuff you won't be let down.
http://www.por15.com/s.nl/it.A/id.1520/.f

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

^^ That doesnt seem that expensive, infact that seems pretty reasonable to me. I should ask my buddy if he has any products for this- hes a small time independent but professional detailer on the weekend. Thanks for the product suggestion, I'll have to see if anyone around here has that stuff.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

What's the status man? Get all that crap off?

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

Yesterday was a shitty day. Your droped your valve cover.. someone kicked a shoping cart into my car... trunk lid is dented, with a crease.. just above the civic emblem... then the cart didnt stop there, but scraped up the trim that hides the plate light bulbs, an scraped off a whole bunch of clearcoat off my NEW BUMPER WITH NEW PAINT. So pissed off. Yesterday was the most unbelievably shitty day... heres what really popped it of, i'll try and make it short:

I'm working in the shoe dept for the entire day, one man show- boss wants me to reorganize the entire place kuz the district manager is coming in the next day- pretty much impossible, so I'm kinda down. Fixing the shit up, and a customer is like do you have a shoe sizer to size him- and points at this old man (late 80+'s) sitting on the bench. I go and grab the shoe sizer thats left in the womens dept (its strictly mens) and tell him he need to pop his shoe off and stand up on this gizmo. He cant hear me... so one of his kids yells in his ear. They take his shoe off... no socks.. foots swollen, his toes are curled beyond believe, forget about clipping his toe nails... and there was this stench that knocked me two rows back... I was like whoa holly shit. So I told them to help him stand up and push his foot all the way back... i hold my breath and go in for a reading.. only to get an upclose shot of his foot that is caked in this yellowish gunk- looked like CORN-MEAL between his toes. I almost threw up a little, but swalloed it... gross I know... 10.5 US. So I go to get him some shoes to try on... gross... and told them he had to put on one of thoes panny-ho slipper deals... they go and get him some socks.. make me get like 9 boxes of shoes out for him... Finally hooked him up with some new balanaces... the had me go and get them a bag to put his nasty ass shoes in... they finally left and I was like did that really happen? Like, wheres the camera at? I was cleaning up the boxes, and noticed he left his cornmeal mixture on the shoe sizer and on the carpet... Gosh, and it reeked. I took care of the shoes, and grabbed the shoe sizer, took it in the back and sprayed the shit out of it with an arsenol of chemicals. Then I went to the bathroom to wash my hands and struggled not to throw up. Headed back to the dept, via the beauty counter to get some perfume samples to smeel through the day. It was that bad.

Allright, off to the garage to work on this a little bit more before I gotta go back to work again, and deal with shoes, loss prevention and looking at the cameras, and the police on the shopping cart deal.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:

Holly shit that was pretty funny about the old man funny and gross and just messed up I'm glade that I don't have to deal with people like that at my job.

Was this also the same day that girl at work you liked sunk your boat?

But on the serious side I gotta say sorry about the dent I know what its like.
When I was in high school I had my first cars front fender bent up in the parking lot on purpose I think.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

^ yep it all happened yesterday. Decided to order a pizza to try and make myself happy... spring 10 bucks for a deal a papa johns... got this barbaque hawaiian pizza, and another thin crust pizza for my parents... well... mine was extra large, and instead of tomato sauce, it had bbq sauce, which was fvcking horrible. I'm glad that day is over. Now I have a headache, and looks like my hours got cut by 50%... why? Oh well, more time to work on the car. Gotta take it to check the emissions anyways, then start the engine modding.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

Wrenchin on your car will help you find your inner chi. Its the happy place I go to when I have a bad day.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

cornmeal. that's sick

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

Well Triz, looks like you're doing a great job on the Valve cover. I might have a suggestion for you. You can try using Garnet paper to remove extra already incurred scratches in the cover, then re-buff it. Additionally, if you get a good polisher, 3m or meguairs, it's like 10$ for a 12 ounce bottle, you can polish it up really nice with a terry cloth and a drill attachment, or even your hands.

Looks like I'll be the first person to paint my valve cover with the chrome paint. Ha ha, it's cool though I'll let everyone know how it goes.


Ain't that the truth, Once I left my hoodpins open like an idiot, drove off and smashed my windshield to a million little pieces. I told my buddy I would put in a sound system for him, when he saw what happened to my windshield, he was like yo dude if you're just mad and want to take the rest of the day and chill that's ok with me, I told him nah man working on cars gets my mind off of all that stuff. So I installed 2 15" subs, 2 amps, re-wired the deck, all that good stuff, it helped me be less mad.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

Man, I worked on this yesterday and wore out the wire brush dremel attachment... *rolls eyes* its like a cutting disc now.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

LOL - that's exactly why I painted mine! Looks like I may be able to repair it too. After looking at it, the damage isn't so bad. That's an "after the car gets painted" project.

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

oh, and thanks for the suggestion on the "Garnet paper" I'll have to look around for that.

Everything that says Garnet paper seems to be for woodworking?

Re: My valve cover project- stay tuned
 

Yeah, it's a less abrasive version of sandpaper if you catch my drift...
I'm thinking it's worth a shot, it should take off the little shreds of metal that are sticking up at a microscopic level without making more cuts in the metal. Although I've never done attempted this before so to be honest I don't know what it'll do. Try it on a spot that's inconspicuous first.