Painting Valve Cover

Hey guys, as most of you gus have said in the last post ( i put up with pics of my car about my valve cover, i got so embarrased that i went out and bought Paint Stripper and RED Engine Paint. I just wanted to know if there is anything special that i have to do. Like should i take the valve cover off the engine? because i have never taken off the valve cover. I can do it, i just wanna know what the best way to do it before i fuk anything up. Yea, and how many coats are good?

Deffinitely remove it from the engine to avoid any overspray.

Once you've used the paint-stripper, go to town on it with a wire brush, then wash it with soapy water and rinse it well. Make sure you mask off any areas you don't want to get paint (bolt-holes, spark plug holes, oil-filler hole, etc.). Then get to spraying. Take your time, use lots of really thin coats to avoid runs and sags. I would probably put on 3 or 4 full coats (multiple thin coats each). Then, use some 320 grit sand paper and sand the paint off of the "H" logo and the other raised lettering on the valve cover.

That should be it. Good luck, send pics! :)

thanks man, i will try and do this tommorow, and i will take pics and hopefully set up a how-to section on my page... thanks man!

I did mine sort of halfassed. I never knew of the stripper so I partially painted over the old paint.

hey dont forget you should get a new valve cover gasket since you said you never took it off before. so its probably old and cracking

If you have access to a sand blaster/bead blaster, that would be the best way to get the paint off and a finish to begin painting. Sometimes you can get it done for real cheap too. If you count the cost of sandpaper and stripper you may not be in it much more by sandblasting.

Paint stripper is nasy shit. I hate the stuff.

Well its not that hard to paint it. Mine came out really good. I'll to get some pics. I used that engine enamel stuff. I primered and painted. I only used 2 coats. You know the original black rough coating thats on the valve cover. I painted over that cause i like that rough sandy look. Anyways i'll try to get some pics. :)

Or you could just get it powder coated, which is what I'm going to do with my D16Y8 cover. I don't know how much it costs, but a buddy of mine runs a powder-coating shop here in town, so all I gotta do is pick up the powder stuff from Sherwin Williams, and he'll shoot it for free.

ive gotten prices on powder coating, and its about 30-40 bucks, which isnt bad, since powder coated valve covers go for about 200 bucks on EBAY!!!!