Bill-35thAnvrsy-88

A friend offered to take these items to his shop and sand blast them to clean 'em up. On the valve covers, I am gonna restore them this winter. I was just curious if it's OK to blast these items without causing any damage?

Wadyathink?
Thanks!
Bill

MyBlueC5

Bill,

If your friend has a media other than sand, it would be better. When we media blast anything like that, we usually use crushed walnut shells or plastic beads.... less chance of pitting and damaging your stuff.

Just a suggestion.

Mark

scorp508

I use glass bead in our sandblaster at home on the plenum/runner/intake and it works great.

On the valve covers it takes a lot of work as the OEM primer and paint are caked on there like nobody's business. I would recommend just cleaning the valve covers thoroughly with Kerosene to get the grime off, hit them with some sand paper (400 grit maybe) to rough up the paint some, wash them down with water and dry them before putting another coat on.

The OEM castings are pitted horribly and the OEM primer/paint fills in all of the pits.

Bill-35thAnvrsy-88

If the valve covers are pitted that bad...wouldn't the new paint job look crappy?

scorp508

If you strip off all of the existing stuff, yes, unless you put many many coats on. If you leave whats on there on it and just do a new coat or two over it they come out nice.

C10 JDR

If you blast the plenum, be sure to clean it out thoroughly afterwards, I know someone who wrecked an engine like that. Then have it all powder coated :cool:

Bans25

:iagree:

I let dgoodhue use my bead blaster on his intake/runners/plenum and they came out like new!

Albertgofaster

ah ,yes media blasting if the best way however I took the advice from this forum and used aircraft grade paintstriper from NAPA worked great! However do not get that stuff on your skin Whoooooowhooooooo that stuff hurts! Anyways I decided to paint the runners black High temp paint with clear coat High temp but powder coat would be my first choice but I didnt have time came out nice though. Good luck.


:p: :p: :p: :seeya


[Modified by Albertgofaster, 6:57 PM 11/26/2003]

Bill-35thAnvrsy-88

As a result of your points, I spoke to my buddy and he said he would be using glass bead on the plenum and runners. On the valve covers, I think I'll do what was suggested and NOT take them all the way down to bare metal but clean 'em w/kero, clean/rinse and couple new coats. Less work for me!

Cool...thanks again guys!
Bill

Sam Lam

I know by now that people have their own way of doing things and here are some comments on refinishing the plenum, runners and valve covers. I completed this project last winter.
1. Glass bead blasting was used to clean my plenum and runners. After completing this, the colors of the parts were different and I did not like this appearance. I used PPG DX 507 (I think the number is correct) chemical to treat the aluminum and then painted the parts with Rustoleum Hi Temp silver paint. They still look great.
2. The valve covers were a shade of brown and they would not bead blast! I had to use aircraft stripper (from Auto Zone) to remove the powder coat. The covers were not pitted as described in earlier posts. I sanded the covers with 400 wet sand paper and put about three coats of Rustoleum Hi Tme paint on them. Oh yes, I also treated them with the PPG material prior to painting.
This project cost me less than $50 and the engine looks great after a year of use. If anyone wants pictures, send me a note.

Bill-35thAnvrsy-88

I'd like some pics if ya don't mind!

scorp508

I also used aircraft stripper and it barely took the paint off. It wouldn't even touch the primer on mine. You must have the single most miraculous set of valve covers out there. I've gone through 4 sets of the things and they've all been pitted to hell. :( I've got pictures at home somewhere showing how bad they are.

freaker

I have reciently completed the same task. Not sure about the medium used but I didn't do the valve covers. I just gave them a good clean and a couple of coats of the proper valve cover paint. That was over a year ago and they still look great! Lotsa Luck! :steering:

Sam Lam

Scorp: It took about 5 to 6 coats of the stripper to get the brown "mess" from the surface of my valve covers. It got to the point that I was going to get all than d--m paint off regardless what it took! To my surprise, the covers were not pitted or "holy" as I expected to find. There were some parting line marks in the magnesium, but they were clean. I did not make pictures of the unpainted covers...wish I had done this! I will send some pictures to Scorp and Bill-88. Regards, Sam :)