Valve cover clean up

[dtmcnamara]

Ok so my valve cover was looking a little beat up after 8 years of oil changes, valve adjustments and just wear and tear on it. I decided to do a little DIY wrinkle paint and figured I would take a few pictures of it while I was doing it and do a little write up.

Things you need:
VHT Wrinkle paint (comes in black and red)
Air Craft stripper
Nuts and bolts
Old shirt or towel

First things first you need to get the valve cover off.

Next you need to remove any rubber grommets from the cover

Then you need to start to strip all the paint off the cover. What I did was cut up an old shirt and cover up the spark plug holes since the seals were still in. I sprayed the entire cover and let it sit for around 30 minutes while it did its magic. I then sprayed everything off and then sprayed the stripper where it was needed

Once it is cleaned up you need to scuff up the bare metal. I used the metal scuffing pads and just cleaned everything up for about 10-15 minutes. This helps get any remaining paint off the cover and makes the surface easier for the paint to stick too.

Finally you need to clean the cover one last time and dry it completely off.

Next you need to cover up any holes in the cover. What I used were random bolts and washers to cover mounting holes, fill holes, and the sensor holes. This seems to work well. I then used the cut up shirt to cover up the spark plug holes as again.

Now its time to paint. What I did was spray the cover with 3 thick coats. When reading the can it says to spray vertical, horizontal, and then diagonal, so I did. In between each spray I let the paint set up for 10 minutes.

Once the final coat was put on I set the over to 200 degrees and the timer for one hour. I placed the cover on a tray with tin foil on it and place it in the over.

Within 10 minutes you will see the paint start to wrinkle. Let the cover completely bake and thhen remove it and let it cool off.

Once its cooled off reassemble the seals and then re install.

If you have any questions let me know. I will be doing another cover later this month with the engine paint so I will post up pics of that once it is done.