Refinishing GMPP Competition Valve Covers
01-19-2014, 10:46 AM
#1
Refinishing GMPP Competition Valve Covers I thought I would share how I refinished these valve covers, PN 25534398 & 25534399.
Before:
After
First, I had them powdercoated in Cardinal BK59 textured black. I thought about doing VHT wrinkle black paint at home, which would have been much less expensive, but I was worried about durability and consistent finish/texture.
I did a lot of research before deciding how to finish the lettering. This is a common task for the Honda tuner people, so if you search "painting raised letter valve covers" you can find some videos and info, but hardly anything that actually shows the process of finishing the letters. From what I've read there are three common techniques: mask, vasoline (or variant), and sand. The masking method is tedious and can actually leave a bad edge. With vasoline, you coat the faces of the letters prior to painting, then wipe the paint off afterwards. Both of those methods seemed iffy to me, so I went with the sanding method. I used painters tape to protect from accidentally sanding the wrong part and loaded 220 grit into a 5" random orbital sander. It took about 5 minutes per cover to remove the powdercoat and leave a swirly-brushed finish. I would definitely recommend this method; as long as you are careful with the sander and let it do the work, it does a very nice job. The edges of the letters look very crisp.
I'm extremely happy with the results. Hope this helps someone else out there looking to add color to these covers.
Before:
After
First, I had them powdercoated in Cardinal BK59 textured black. I thought about doing VHT wrinkle black paint at home, which would have been much less expensive, but I was worried about durability and consistent finish/texture.
I did a lot of research before deciding how to finish the lettering. This is a common task for the Honda tuner people, so if you search "painting raised letter valve covers" you can find some videos and info, but hardly anything that actually shows the process of finishing the letters. From what I've read there are three common techniques: mask, vasoline (or variant), and sand. The masking method is tedious and can actually leave a bad edge. With vasoline, you coat the faces of the letters prior to painting, then wipe the paint off afterwards. Both of those methods seemed iffy to me, so I went with the sanding method. I used painters tape to protect from accidentally sanding the wrong part and loaded 220 grit into a 5" random orbital sander. It took about 5 minutes per cover to remove the powdercoat and leave a swirly-brushed finish. I would definitely recommend this method; as long as you are careful with the sander and let it do the work, it does a very nice job. The edges of the letters look very crisp.
I'm extremely happy with the results. Hope this helps someone else out there looking to add color to these covers.
