My GXP has had an issue with the silver lettering flaking off the engine cover ever since I got it. I think my habit of using tire shine on it to make it look nice and black has caused the lettering to flake. Anyway, I tried using a silver sharpie to just touch up the flakes but got tired of how it looked last week and decided to redo it.

First thing's first, just pull up on the cover and it comes right off. There are two sharp little discs holding a pad onto the plastic cover. You can easily remove these without damaging them by using a flat head screw driver and wiggling the teeth out one at a time and just wiggling the disc off the plastic post. Very easy. Slip the pad off.

To chip the old paint off, I just used my fingernails and when that stopped working, started using a... I forgot the name of these things... abrasive dark-gray scotch brite type of pads. It took the rest of the paint right off without scratching the plastic at all. Then, to clean the cover, I filled up my bathtub with water and a generous amount of Palmolive soap. Scrubbed on the cover front and back with a tooth brush and regular sponge. Using the Palmolive soap removed any remaining tire shine stuff and various underhood dirts.

This is how it looked. Pretty cool actually. I considered not painting it at all.




Next, put some rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball and clean the letters and area around them to remove any remaining grease. While this evaporates over the next 5 to 10 minutes, you might want to go clean your bathtub, especially if you live with someone else, or you're going to get your butt kicked before you have time to paint! There's likely going to be a black ring around the tub after you drain the water.

Anyway, I am used to using acrylic paint and it's just about the only paint I have. I used black acrylic paint to touch up a scratch on my sister's Z28 about 5 years ago and the paint is still on there (even though it is matte and doesn't match at all) after dozens of washes, so I figured acrylic would work just fine on my engine cover. You can choose whatever type of paint you like, but I used Delta Ceramcoat acrylic that is sold at Walmart in the craft section and at Michaels and Hobby Lobby. The metallic silver isn't very opaque, so I had to use white first. I did several coats of white, and then several coats of silver over a period of days using a very small brush. Probably 10 coats in all, or about 6 hours of painting time. It's time consuming, which really made me wonder why I didn't just leave it unpainted.

Here it is with a few coats of white. I recommend dipping your brush in water before dipping in paint so it's watered down a bit. To remove mistakes, I used a toothpick and just scratched them off before the paint dried.



Then came the really lame part. Using silver. The silver metallic paint isn't very opaque at all and dries about like candy paint on a car does. You can see through it and it isn't very even coverage. About 6 coats got the job done, and I'll have to let you know if it lasts. I expect it to. I was tempted to put some acrylic gloss on top of the paint, but didn't know if it would yellow because of the engine heat. If I glossed it, the likelihood of me being to scrub it off and do the unpainted look again would be lowered, so I didn't want to chance it. Looks pretty decent as is.






Pictures like these really tempt me to want to paint the exhaust manifold flanges. That rusty iron look is so gross on these cars.

 

Wow, I cannot believe you did that by hand. Nice job!

 

Very nice! I kinda wish I had kept mine.

 

Very good job!! I have the perfect paint for the exhaust manifold. I painted mine before I had the headers installed.
Eastwood Part # 10175Z Silver High Temp Coating Awesome stuff
http://www.eastwood.com/exhaust-deta...high-temp.html

 

Turned out great! I am sure it will be more resilient than the crap factory paint.

 

Looks awesome!

 

Hmm, bit more than I'd want to spend. I'm sure if I removed the parts I'd need to replace the gasket, so I might as well wait until the car is a little higher mileage. I'd like to just be about to spend about $5 and brush some silver or black paint over the rust/iron (that's my ideal vision at least).

I hope so. If it doesn't last, I'll just scratch the paint off and leave it unpainted. It looks pretty slick unpainted honestly.

 

Heater hoses go over your engine cover. Nice job, and it looks beautiful. Btw!
Now, paint your exhuast manifolds. J/k

 

I think that heater hose thing has been discussed a few times. They look better under the cover to me, and that's the way they were when I bought my car (used).

 

They do look a lot better under the cover. I hated how my cover sat crooked when I put them under. Also.. the heater hoses heat up the fuel line and intake when thier placed under. No worries though man... Looks great.
I painted my 455 exhaust manifolds with VHT high temp gray and the painted never burned off. The painted became dull looking but they looked nice.

 

Nice work!

 

And now I wanna paint my manifolds Mel.
Thanks a lot!

 

DavidGXP, how much power/tq you pushing out? Best time on street tires? Your sig has a lot of mods, and a few things I would like.. And how's the tranny handling it all?? Lol

 

thats looks really good i hope it stays although i like the unpainted look

 

I applied the paint with artist brush were you could see when I had the old manifold on the SS 2 coats and it never dulled flaked or burn well worth the money
http://www.eastwood.com/exhaust-deta...high-temp.html

 

looks great when are you taking on orders lol j/k

 

I don't think anybody would pay what I'd charge for the ~8 hours of painting lol

 

Hey guys, I was referring to this topic today, and felt like I should bring it back from the dead. I originally did this lettering almost exactly 3 years ago, and the update is this: the lettering still looks as perfect as it did 3 years ago. I think the heat of the engine is what made the acrylic paint so durable.

Anyway, just wanted to share that my 6 to 8 hours of hand painting the letters in 2011 still looks perfect in 2014, so doing the steps I outlined in the first post will last!