Articles » Polishing a valve cover


Go to the first page   Go to the previous page  


  1. Remove valve cover
  2. Remove gaskets etc.. ( I recommend that you replace these but its up to you)
  3. Put all nuts, Bolts in a sack
  4. If your valve cover has the black crinkle paint, then spray your Aircraft Stripper on it, let it sit 5 minutes and use a water hose and rinse it off, keep repeating this step till all the black paint is gone
  5. MOST IMPORTANT STEP: When sanding, sand in one direction, if you go left to right, then always go left to right, if you go up and down always go up and down, don’t sand in circles.
  6. take your 400 grit sand paper and thoroughly sand your valve cover down, you will know that its sanded good when you keep trying to sand over it and it doesn’t look any different,
  7. Rinse off the dirt and stuff, and get out your 600 grit sand paper, your gonna repeat the same process.
  8. Rinse off the dirt, and get your 800 grit sand paper, this time your going to use water while you sand, sand this really good, the 800 is going to cover all the scratches you made with the 400 and 600 grit
  9. Apply your metal polish and buff it good with your towels, apply a vigourous amount, It will probably take you about 30 minutes to get it good and polished, if you have a drill I used a sanding disk, but cover the disk with heavy cotton cloth, and taped it all up really tight, and used its circular motion to help rub the polish in.



    before, and then after a little buffing




  10. Now take your 1200 grit sand paper and wet sand the valve cover again (this takes care of small imperfections.
  11. Now, whip out your rubbing compound and apply heavy amounts all over the valve cover and your gonna rubb it in realllly good in the same direction you were sanding in, rubbing compound will hide all the 1200 grit scratches you made, once you get that rubbed in really good, then you need to get out your metal polish and start applying the polish and rubbing it in good, when your done it should be almost chrome looking, it wont be as shiny as chrome but it will look really good.




Tips

Don’t sand in circles or else it will look like this when u are finished.



Set aside at least 4 hours, this project is tedious, it took me about 2 days to sand my 2nd valve cover



Icon_info  BIG NEWS!
I have added a videos section to the website!
Check it out here
Author: Brandon Roloff
Date: Mar 26, 2003
Views: 7,517

Want Your Article Here?

Just contact me using this form and let me know. I'm always looking for more articles to add to this section.

Current Poll


What is your favorite racing game?
Gran Turismo
Need for Speed
Midnight Club
Tokyo Extreme Racer
Ridge Racer
Burnout
Project Gotham
Test Drive