I cleaned all of the crappy black paint off the valve cover last night, and sanded the very top of it down so it's a little shiny. Do you guys think I should keep it the silver color, or paint it? I saw black wrinkle paint, but I couldn't find any red. Anyone know where they sell the red crinkle paint if I do decide to paint it?



jB

 

Mine's silver right now too and I love it. It looks really good with the wire cover on it.

 

I think it looks pretty nice!

-Thayne

 

what grit did u sand it with?

 

very clean mean hybrid machine..........

 

Thanks. I started with 220 (or 240, can't remember), and went up to 320 (or 340, can't remember). It's a little rough looking in person, but still looks good. I just got back from Discount with some red touchup paint. I am going to highlight the DOHC VTEC and the symbol with red and see how it looks. If it looks crappy, I'll just sand the layer of paint off.

jB

 

that looks nice man, if you wanna put a mirror finish on it, let me tell you what to do. Get some 1500 Grit sandpaper and wet sand that baby down, then go to 2000 if you want. And then after you do those steps, go to kmart and get some stuff called "mothers mag and aluminum polish" and put some on, and polish it real well, it should take a min or so.. it will make it look like a mirror, guaranteed.. try it man, im serious this stuff rocks, and its liek 3$ for a awsome sized tub.

 

Damn, you hand sanded it?

I sprayed one pass of Aircraft Remover and mine was bare. 5 mins tops.

 

this man speaks the truth. I did that to my heatsink for my computer, it is made of aluminum also, after i sanded it with the 1600 it was so shiny!

 

I started to sand it down originally. After about 5 mins I got smart and went and got the aircraft paint removed. The problem though...the parts that I sanded were really silver and shiny...and the parts that I didn't sand were dull grey. I continued to sand just the top part (That's where I started sanding before) to make it look homogeneous. It looks kinda shiny on the top now and grey everywhere else. I got some red engine paint, and am going to paint inside the symbol. Should I paint before I polish or polish first then paint?

jB

 

Well you can paint then polish, that way you wont get paint on anything shiny, and if you do you can sand it off nicely.. or you can polish it all first, see how it looks, then if you want the symbol to be red, sand it down a bit so the paint sticks and carefully paint it. But id polish second.

 

leave it... looks good

 

Whelp. I couldn't help myself, and the ricer tendencies in me took over. I just had to have it painted. Below is the pic of painting, stage 1. I taped it off and sprayed the symbol. Now to take the paint remover to a flat surface. Press it down so just the paint on top of the symbol is touched, and brush off the paint in about 15 mins...

T- 15 mins for completed project.

jB

 

Ok....Lemme tell you all how the aircraft paint remover BURNS LIKE A **** WHEN IT GETS ON YOUR SKIN. I have had more 2nd degree chemical burns in the last 45 mins then I ever did in High School Chem. Looks like I'm going back to a silver valve cover.

jB

 

leave it

 

haha i told u not to touch it. i didn't get any on my hands when i did mine. how did u end up getting it on your hands?

 

Many trips running to the water hose w/ dish soap nearby... Man, nobody had better **** me off in the near future. I would hate to see someone with this stuff all over their face... I mean...uhh, bad voices, bad.

jB

 

Ok sorry for the dumb questions-but what the heck is aircraft remover? Can I get that at the auto store? Also wouldnt you need to use some kind of sealant on this kind of a project?

 

When I was painting my valve cover, I waited til it tried, and used a dremel tool with the sanding attachment. Great tool to have, after I sanded the paint off, I put on the felt buffing attachment and shined it up. In hindsight, I don't think I would've used the buffer, as can burn the paint pretty easily (you can see in the pictures).

before: http://www.fatboyraceworks.com/crx/i...g/DSCF0024.jpg
After: http://www.fatboyraceworks.com/crx/i...g/DSCF0059.jpg

 

my valve cover is pretty screwed up and I was told that if I got it media blasted it would clean all the paint off and leave it with no marks or nicks to have a shinny finsh... then just run a clear coat over it to prevent any future corosion.

 

[Modified by mindtrix, 12:28 AM 4/24/2002]

 

keep sanding, go get some 600, 800, 1000, 1400, and then get a buffer