If you have some valve covers that work but are just dirty, how would you go about cleaning them up if you were considering painting them with wrinkle paint?

I am looking into ordering a new intake with the "natural" finish and thinking my valve covers would look pretty nice if I painted them black but left the raised ridges and the raised "Holley" lettering on the top unpainted.

Pondering cleaning them up with a degreaser and maybe steel wool or something along those lines and then painting them.

Would that work?

 

Clean them with degreaser, then use a round wire brush chucked up in a drill motor to brush the surface and break anything else loose. Then rewash, degrease and paint away.

 

Degreaser
blast cabinet
?

 

"blast cabinet"

I had kicked that one around. My buddy has one of those sand blasters that has the cabinet where you put something in, put your hands in the attached gloves and go at it.

Not sure if his works or not but he would likely let me borrow it if it does. The catch is he is only open 8-5 Mon - Fri so that would be tough for me to do with work, etc.

I had figured wire wheel might be a good alternative. Worked pretty good on the exhaust I cleaned up then high heat painted a few months back.

 

If they have caked on grime, use Easy Off oven cleaner and then take them to the local car wash and blast them with the high pressure hose. If they are steel, the blast cabinet is okay, but will damage chrome and can damage aluminum depending on the media.

 

Drop them off at his shop and then pick them up later, and give him a few bucks for doing it for u

 

before I'd borrow the cabinet I'd rather give the old covers to your buddy. can be done quickly. personally I'd do what JamesW or Mark suggests. That are the options if you don't have a fully equipped garage

 

yeah if your buddy has glass beads in the cabinet (looks like sand) it'll be great on those aluminum covers. if he's got regular sand i wouldnt use it on them.

a wire wheel would be good, but probably make it hard to get between all the lines on the top of the cover.

 

there's some kinda plastic wirewheels. 3M make them . they're magic!

 

I absolutly hated mine when I bought one. Didn't do anything...