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GMAN

GMAN

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OK, many of you know about my 98 Black on Black that when up in smoke. (Man I miss that car) Some of the parts are living on in my silver 93. Today I sand blasted the valve covers, intake and throttle body from the car. Now I'm going to polish to a mirror finish the valve covers and intake
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Wish I had the ability to blast mine. I wanted to bring them to the bare metal then scuff them to look like brushed aluminum and then clear them. One day.
 
I had my valve covers media blasted and powder coated locally by Snail Performance here in Vegas for $80. I was originally going to go with a chrome powder but was blown away by a sample they had named "Silver explosion" they ended up not being able to obtain "silver explosion" but their vendor supplied them with it's replacement "exploding silver"
same thing but newer. It's hard to capture in pictures but here's how they turned out.

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They are a subtle silver metallic flake in all lighting situations until you put them in direct sun light and then they just light up. It's a bit on the bold side, but I enjoy it.
 
Wow those are rowdy valve covers... I kinda like it though.

GMan, see you in a few decades when you're done.
 
I blasted one of my valve covers recently, in preparation for one of my friends polishing them, but once I got a good look at them after blasting, I changed my mind, for his sake. It would have taken forever. Instead, I'm getting them done in wrinkle black, and he's just gonna polish the cobra intake cover and the new coolant crossover cap I made.
 
"F" that...I had that idea for my intake...did a small section with my dremil, no thanks

looks good so far Gregg, but don't forget the timing cover, tensioner pulley and brackets ;D
you'll be polishing for days
 
Are you really doing all of that with a dremel? That's insane. Get yourself some harbor freight tools or something. As was said.....F that.
 
if you dont coat them with a high temp clear coat all that polishing will look like dog:q:q:q:q in 6 months and when its back on the car you'll never polish them again! if you want to leave them raw greg i would highly reccomend you get them powdercoated with a high temp clearcoat. also, aircraft paint stripper would have made getting the black off them super easy!
 
Find a local Pilot fuel station, and get Busch's Aluminum Polish... that stuff is the BEST I've ever used... and I've used a LOT of aluminum polish.

Before you polish, I'd recomend wetsanding the covers with 1000-1500 grit sandpaper. That will smooth out a lot of the casting lines/cracks.

I brought a set of 14" Aluminum slots back from the dead after I bought them from the junkyard. Put em on my '77 Mustang and people thought they were brand new rims.

If youre forward-thinking (unlike me when I polished the rims 3-or so years ago) You'll find someone to put a nice pretty clear powder coat on them. It will take some of the "bling" aways from the aluminum, but will stay clean and bright for a long time. It will look about like a polished/coated wheel.
 
Well, I am just about done with the first one. I'm not getting the mirror finish I am looking for yet. I already sanded ith 1000 grit. I am thinking I need to sand more.
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From the looks of it, you're going to have to lean on it with 400-600 grit first. There's still a significant amount of casting lines in it. Maybe even use a 600-ish grit on a sanding roll on the dremel to really knock those high spots down. Heck, I went from 180 grit on my aluminum slot mags all the way up to 2000 wetsanding it the whole time by hand. Then hand polished them. LOTS of time in those rims..... jeeze...


The higher grit in which you wetsand with, the smoother the material will be, and the polish (and you) wont have to work as hard to achieve a finish. You might actually want to start out polishing with Mothers white paste. It's more aggressive than the Busch's for a rough cut. But def. use Busch's for a final finish... My friend uses that stuff on his Weld Draglites on his mustang that he drives every day and they look amazing.. no water spots or anything.
 
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