valve cover refurbish

Doing my valve clearances and replacing the valve cover gasket I used gasket remover and it peeled off some of the clear coating on the valve cover.

3 Questions:
1. I'm planning on using airplane paint stripper to remove the rest of the clear coating. Cool?

2. What do I use to clean up the valve cover? Should I just clean it up as much as possible? Should I sand it? If so, what grit?

3. What do I use to replace the clear coating? Is there something in a spray bottle that I can just apply, or do I have to get a spray attachment for my compressor?

Thanks.

 

The paint stripper will remove the old clear coat. You may have to rub it in places. I use an old scotch britte pad. A fresh scotch britte pad and then a session with the buffing wheel and some white rouge will have it looking like a mirror. Make sure you clean it with acetone before you clear coat it. The high temp clear from duplacolor seems to hold up well. You can just apply wax after the buffing if you like and for go the clear. Just have to hit it with polish every once and a while.

 

I don't re-clear coat; once things are properly polished and protected they don't need much maintenance.

For the valve cover, it's a matter of how shiny you want it, and how bad it's corroded. For my '81, I wanted to keep it "natural" so after using the aircraft paint remover and scrubbing with household cleanser, I boiled it in lime juice (store was out of lemon juice.) To keep it clean without being too shiny, I just hit it with a wad of Nev-R-Dull every now and then.




If you want SHINY shiny like chrome, say on the raised parts, start with 800 grit wet and work your way up to about 1500 or 2000, then you can switch to polish.

This one eventually got painted low-gloss black, but I could have stopped here and left it natural.




After painting:

 

Please excuse my ignorance:
with the "wet" sand paper, should I be lubricating it with something?

 

Yes you should Moto. Witness the valve covers above sitting on the sink, a ready source of water. You can use other fluids but water works fine.

 

I just finished my valve cover. It came out looking close to the last picture in bigfitz's post, but not quite as nice. Following his advice, I painted the entire cover black, then sanded the paint off of the raised areas. The ribs on my cover had some deep scratches and gouges that I didn't mess with trying to fill in. Sanding the paint off of the ribs was a pain, but it does work. I used the wet/dry sandpaper wrapped around a block to provide a flat surface, because i was worried about rounding over the edges of the ribs.

If you search, I posted regarding this very subject maybe two weeks ago, and got some very good advice in the replies. I don't really know how to link back to it.

Good luck. Mike

 

Here's the link I think your refering to.

http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic ... art=0.html

 

That's the one! Thanks!

 

Hello everyone,
If you want that polished look for your aluminum covers and want it to last for years with out having to repolish use this stuff www.alumaclear.com. I used it on all my polished covers and have customers that used it on their polished tankers that swear by it. It goes on almost rubbery and dries with no haze in it. After 30 days its totaly cured and you can wet sand and buff out the covers then treat them just like your other painted surfaces wash and wax. I put mine back on after about 12 hours I don't think I'm going to do anything more to them but wax them up. The best part is you can buy it in a rattle can and one can was more than enough to do all my covers and some of my friends covers as well.
I have used clear coats before on polished aluminum and they always scratch off really easily.