One of the things I wasn't happy with in my engine bay was my valve cover, so recently I took it off and began one of the most painstakingly boring and mundane tasks I've ever started in my life.
After removing the valve cover, this is what I was starting with
Starting with 180 grit sandpaper, I began sanding away.
Many many many many hours later, I finished going through the following process:
180 > 320 > 400 > 600 > 800 > 1000 > 1500 > 2000
Then polished with mothers aluminum polish, and finished with mothers carnuba wax.
" To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous. "
Very nice! How long did the entire process take?
clear that thing, or you will be polishing hte hell out of it every month or so
Wow, that came out great, installed pics!
One bone to pick would be the 90' fittings on the intake manifold, seems straight nipples on the bottom portion of it would've looked a bit more pleasing.
cool likes nice man
JBOK.org / J-Bodies of Kentucky
i have another cover i plan on doing this with...no i will stop being lazy and start it now that i have seen this. i want mine to look like a mirror too!
~DVST8R~ aka ThaCaviKid
Nitrous is like wanting to have sex with a hot chick that has an STD... you wanna hit it,
but you are afraid of the consequences
cartman 05 wrote:Very nice! How long did the entire process take?
You probably don't want to know... somewhere around 20-25 hours I'm guessing. I definitely took decent breaks in between sanding, this project took me about two weeks since I didn't really sit down for more than an hour or two at a time. I didn't have a spare valve cover though, so that meant bugging family members to borrow their cars when I needed to go anywhere haha!
Got2BeGT wrote:OMG...so sexy dude! Amazing job
Now post a pic of it back on the engine...
Thanks man, hopefully soon - I am debating getting it clear coated before doing so.
EVOFire {DesertTuners} wrote:clear that thing, or you will be polishing hte hell out of it every month or so
Definitely considering it, I need to get some quotes to have it done.
gtpsunfire wrote:Looks amazing dude.
Thanks Darren
Joe Schulte wrote:Wow, that came out great, installed pics!
One bone to pick would be the 90' fittings on the intake manifold, seems straight nipples on the bottom portion of it would've looked a bit more pleasing.
Thanks for the compliment Joe. I know what you mean about the fittings, but that's just where they were drilled from Hahn. If I didn't use 90 fittings the hoses would have went straight over the frame above the rad. Ideally I'd like to have some prettier looking ones, but the anodized Earl's/Russell ones just so expensive that I can't justify it right now anyway. It will have to stay this way for a while. If you have any suggestions though I'd like to hear what you think.
Ben (DirtyJ) wrote:cool likes nice man
Thanks!
~DVST8R~ aka ThaCaviKid wrote:i have another cover i plan on doing this with...no i will stop being lazy and start it now that i have seen this. i want mine to look like a mirror too!
Expect to lose some of your fingerprints man
It's finally looking like it was worth it, but the amount of time you have to invest doing it this way is just mind boggling. Definitely not something you can sit down and do in a weekend lol.
" To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous. "
boner! dude, what an amazing piece to add to your bay! congrats man and all your hard work DEFINATELY paid off!
WiGM-Tuners member.
i call turbo, tb, and non-abs distro block be next looks great
ʇı ɹǝʍo7 | ǝcoMonstǝrs
Dude you dont even need to bro do this:
http://www.caswellplating.com/vht/vhtclear.htm
And drive the car around and it will cure itslef, it will look great, no need to spend money on clear for a motor thats the easiest thing to clear. Hope that helps
Wow, thats freakin' awesome!! I agree with Chris....a little cut and buff and it'll look REALLY amazing!
M62, 42's, ZZP 3", ZZP S3 H/E
214whp 190wtq
Wooot!! Welcome to the polished valve cover club.
Nice work! I've got one I'm working on, I actually gave up and had it blasted. Now I gotta do the final 1000-2000 polish steps.
Member of J-body of Michigan.
Torres wrote:Dude you dont even need to bro do this:
http://www.caswellplating.com/vht/vhtclear.htm
And drive the car around and it will cure itslef, it will look great, no need to spend money on clear for a motor thats the easiest thing to clear. Hope that helps
one thing i don't understand after reading the curing directions for that product are: Heat curing method for maximum resistance to solvents, salt spray, humidity, thermal shock and heat:
In a dedicated electric oven:
15 minutes at 250°F
30 minutes at 600°F
1 hour at 800°F
30 minutes at 1,000°F.
15 minute cure @ 250, 30 @ 600, 1 hour @ 800, 30 minutes @ 1,000? doesnt seem quite right...
Oh, crap, i forgot to mention, That cover looks freakin sweet!!! excellent work!!!!!
sinner wrote:Torres wrote:Dude you dont even need to bro do this:
http://www.caswellplating.com/vht/vhtclear.htm
And drive the car around and it will cure itslef, it will look great, no need to spend money on clear for a motor thats the easiest thing to clear. Hope that helps
one thing i don't understand after reading the curing directions for that product are: Heat curing method for maximum resistance to solvents, salt spray, humidity, thermal shock and heat:
In a dedicated electric oven:
15 minutes at 250°F
30 minutes at 600°F
1 hour at 800°F
30 minutes at 1,000°F.
15 minute cure @ 250, 30 @ 600, 1 hour @ 800, 30 minutes @ 1,000? doesnt seem quite right...
Yeah I dont get that too much either, but I think the natural heat from the motor itself will cure it just fine, I have seen it done before with painted valve covers and its come out clean
lol, just seems like if it takes 30 @ 600, it would take much much less time at 1000...? who knows? I know when i am spraying cars, i usually bake the paint @ 140 for 15-30 minutes with a 20-45 minute cool down, but the materials i spray are not for high temp applications. Must be a unique quality to the off-gassing of whatever chemical base the coating is created with. I would still love to get ahold of some of that at play around with it. i can think of about 10 million cool applications for it.
likewise, I may just buy a can to screw around with it
Thanks everyone for the positive comments, didn't expect this many. As for the next thing to be polished, ha! Not for a while, I'm sick of it!!
As far as clear coat is concerned, I've decided to wait until next spring to get it done. I'm waiting on some spending money before I go ahead and stock up on a gigantic set of polishing stuff from eshine.ca (buffer, pads, compounds, etc). Once I get that stuff I'll definitely be redoing the buffing job. Until then, I'm just throwing it on like it is, and hopefully with some coats of wax every so often it won't get too bad before next season
Chris, like I said above I'm definitely going to do some mechanical buffing, but I need to wait until I get the materials. Thanks for the tips though
ACav2Envy, if you're already at 1000 grit, you may want to consider going with a series of pads/compounds/polishes to get to the finished state. I only went with sanding because I don't currently have the materials to do so. If you can avoid sanding with the higher grits you will introduce less hazing into the final finish, and get a better finish overall.
" To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous. "
Dave my uncle is a body-manand has been for over 20 years, I can get that cleared for you for next to squat.
