How To: Painting Valve Cover

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Tyler
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How To: Painting Valve Cover

Post by Tyler » Fri Mar 16, 2007 10:49 am

This is a how-to based on what I did only. Not what maybe should have been done or could have. Results may vary for person to person.

Supplies:

Spare Valve Cover (Mine was sohc as you'll see in the pics)
Paint Stipper-Auto Strip is what I used from Autozone, $5
Steel Wool- I got a 3 pack with 3 different grades of roughness
Sand Paper- 220 grit, 400 grit, 800 grit should be enough for ya.
Self Etching Primer
Standard Grey Primer
High Temp Engine Paint- I used Red
High Temp Engine Clear Coat
*Plastic Scraper- Can be used to get the original paint off the VC.
Rag you dont care throwing away

Alright, these are the steps as I went about it.

1)
Tape off the oil fill hole on the top of the VC. You can take out the spark plug gaskets cuz you'll most likely want to replace them anyway after this is done.

2)
Take the VC and set it on a piece of cardboard or piece of wood. Get in a well ventilated area and spray the hell outa the valve cover with the Paint Stripper you chose. Let it sit and bubble for about 1/2 hour to 1 hour. After it ahs set, take yout palstic scraper adn scrape away. You'll get alot of big strips of paint off but dont get too excited. This is the real fun. You may have to use the paint stripped 3 or 4 more times and these times you need to use the steel wool pads. I used the Medium grade for it being Aluminum. The carcks around the holes for the bolts are the hardest areas to work. Just scrape and scrub with the scraper and the wool until all is removed. And after clean it with rubbing alcohal or whatever. This will keep bits and pieces of the paint from getting into your primer and giving you bumps.(I skipped this step, not thinking)

It should look something like this:

Image

3)Next is Primering. After rubbing the VC with the mediium grade steel wool, the VC should be roughed out enough for primer. Get out your Self Etching Primer. Mine was green so dont be worried about the color. Coat it with 2-3 light coats, so everything gets covered nicey. After that, get out the 800 grit Sand paper and rough it up a tad bit, but not enough to go through the primer. If you go through the primer, you'll have to recoat it.

Self Etching Primer:
Image

Once sanded, coat it with 2-3 coats of the Universal Grey Primer. Once it's covered completely, do the same as the last time. Sand it down a tad bit, just enough so it feels rough and a little scratched up. Remember 800 grit or 400 grit is the roughest you want to go here. Do not go through the primers and have to start over. Dont ever use pressure when sanding here.

The grey primer sanded:
Image

4)

Now the real paint. Remember when paining, try to be in a well ventialted area. And make sure it's warm where your painting so you get the optimal look of the paint. Since all the primer is set up and layered, put a light basecoat on of the High Temp Red. Just enough to cover most of everything, cuz once the paint starts to run, your screwed. Once dry add about 4 more decent coats of red on it, all light so no running occurs. Once you get your shade of red you want to achieve it should look like this

Image

5)

Now you make a choice. Polished letters or AS-IS. I went polished letters with mine. To poilish the letters I first used 220 grit sand paper to get most the paint of the letters. Once most paint is gone, I went to 400 grit then to 800 grit and once enough work is applied you can easily get polish look you want. After that, put a few coats of clear coat on it and your done. If you didnt go for the polished letters look, just put 2-3 coats of clear on it and call it a day.

Congradulations, you just made your self a nice look valve cover that all the ricer boys and your fellow neon enthusiests will like. Fell free to post pics of your finished products in this thread to show how well this process works.
Last edited by Tyler on Sat Mar 17, 2007 11:29 am, edited 6 times in total.
97 sohc- 'Victoria'
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APN
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Post by APN » Fri Mar 16, 2007 10:54 am

You forgot the paint ;)
#64
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Jordan2.4 wrote:Apn...please make a new sig with pictures of your car CLEAN...i am tired of looking at the dirt...
That's called chipping paint son. Get some glasses. 8)

Tyler
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Post by Tyler » Fri Mar 16, 2007 11:02 am

Not done yet. Had to change classes. lol
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APN
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Post by APN » Sat Mar 17, 2007 6:04 pm

Install pix :D
#64
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APN wrote:
Jordan2.4 wrote:Apn...please make a new sig with pictures of your car CLEAN...i am tired of looking at the dirt...
That's called chipping paint son. Get some glasses. 8)

Tyler
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Post by Tyler » Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:26 am

Not on yet. Too cold for one, and too Im getting a SS bolt kit from Riddler so Im gonna wait for those also. SHould be like 2 weeks.
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NinjaneonTurtle
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Post by NinjaneonTurtle » Sun Mar 18, 2007 5:30 pm

not to flame or anything, but never skip grits by over 100 each time. skipping doesn't take all of the coarser grit scratches out.
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Tyler
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Post by Tyler » Sun Mar 18, 2007 7:06 pm

Well this isn't professional or anything. Just kinda DIY to look better than stock. Im not a painter at all, so I did what I could with what I know and it turned out pretty good.
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NinjaneonTurtle
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Post by NinjaneonTurtle » Sun Mar 18, 2007 7:11 pm

oh I know, I was just trying to help out. try it next time you sand, it might make a difference for you
1998 Neon R/T Coupe
1988 Colt Hatchback

Tyler
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Post by Tyler » Sun Mar 18, 2007 7:21 pm

gotcha!
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chrono_killa
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Post by chrono_killa » Sun Mar 25, 2007 12:44 pm

can u throw it in the oven to cure?
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My Cars-98 plymouth highline neon, atx, msd coil, 3.0 intake, ebay udp
Future mods- magnum head, magnum header, rims, msd wires, 60mm tb, dohc pistons, 2.5" dual exhaust, modded valvebody, filled mounts, switch to a tach cluster with green leds and some more shit

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Did mine today

Post by kivi » Sun Sep 16, 2007 1:09 pm

Heres a few pics on different stages of my work on my valve cover, I know the camera sucks ass, as it's in my cell phone, but anyone considering doing this should get a pretty good idea of what a complete newbie (me) can achieve doing this.

Since I don't know how to get pix working here I'll only post a url to my photobucket gallery. http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc189/dj_esko/

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Post by SPARKZ » Sat Sep 29, 2007 5:20 am

to post the pics on here from photobucket choose the last link, and how did you paint the cover and not the letters ??



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rlneon
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Post by rlneon » Sun Feb 24, 2008 9:56 pm

when I did mine I painted that corner white, then taped off the letters then after the rest was painted I untaped the letters and went over them with a small paint brush.
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not the best pic but its all I got right now

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Post by kivi » Fri Feb 29, 2008 4:10 am

I actually painted them and sanded the paint off when dry.

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