Hey guys. This is my first ever attempt at a write-up but I figured this morning when I decided to paint my valve cover, I'd "document" what I did and maybe it'll turn out good. Well, it looks FANTASTIC. I am actually very suprized at how good it turned out. So anyway, I'm going to show you what I did and maybe it'll help some of you guys out. BTW: If you do this and screw it up, it's not my fault. I happened to have an extra VC laying around so it was project time. I also will be updating to say if the paint is chipping so you'll know if my process worked or not.
First, I'm sure alot of you guys have had something that looks like this under your hood.
This is such an eyesore to me. People may not see it often, but when you do lift your hood, you want them to be impressed, and since the paint tends to do... well... that after a while, the impressiveness wears off... quick. Well, the best solution to get it looking new and original again is to paint it. This is actually way harder than it sounds. When I painted my H23 valve cover, it chipped off within a month, but I skipped alot of steps. Well, here is how I did it this time and I feel it worked great.
1. Remove Valve Cover.
This is something that is fairly easy to do. Basically its getting everything out of the way in order to lift the VC strait off the head. Unplug the spark plug wires, PVC, and the hose that runs to the intake (4got name...
), disconnect battery and unscrew the wires connected to the alternator (trust me, disconnect the battery.) Once everything is out of the way, unscrew and take off all the nuts that hold the VC in place. You might have to use a pry bar or something to get the VC loose but once you get it loose, you should be able to get it off easily. Once you have the valve cover in your hand, find the gasket that is on the bottom and go ahead and discard it. While you have the VC off, you might as well change the gasket. Don't have to, but I did. Be sure to look and see where the sealant is, you'll need to apply some to the new gasket in the same place. My gasket from honda was like $11.
2. Pre-cleaning.
The second thing I did was went ahead and cleand the crap out of the VC. Simple green, a brush, and alot of water is what I used. This to, to me, just gave me a good clean substrate to start working on. Spray, wait, brush, rinse. Do this a couple of times and then just soak until you don't see any bubbles. I was very careful to keep the baffles in the VC free of degreaser residue. I don't want that mixing with my oil eventually.
3. Paint Removal.
This is the part that I thought would kill me but once I figured it out, it wasn't half bad. I went to Wal-Mart in search of a good paint stripper and came across something called Airplane Remover (under $5). Now, I don't know how good this is at making aircraft dissappear but it did wonders on the paint. You are supposed to spray it on and let it sit for 10-15 minutes, but after about 5-7, I could just wipe the paint off with a old rag. No sanding. I swear the whole paint removal process took all of a half hour. Once again I was careful to not let it in the PVC hole. I used a small plug but just find something that will fit snug and you should be fine.
After I wiped as much as I could off with the rag, I soaked it again w/ water. I sprayed it for a LONG time because I really don't know what it would have done had it stayed on there any longer (a VC puddle maybe
).
4. Cleaning... Again.
After the paint removal, I degreased again. I've heard that oil will actually seep into metal and if it's up under paint, it'll cause it to chip off very easily. My solution: clean, clean, clean, etc. You can't get the metal too clean.
5. Masking.
After I got the VC completely clean of paint, oil, and other contaminants, and is completely dry I started masking off areas that I didn't want painted. Basically, I covered the DOHC VTEC symbol (very carefully and trim out around each letter and the insides of D/O etc.) oil cap hole, PVC hole, EGR(?) nipple, and spark plug holes. These seemed like places that were not painted from the factory so I didn't want to mess with that. The finished product looked like this...
and yes, DOHC VTEC is taped in that pic. Man I'm good...
6. Priming.
I decided to prime the VC because it was just bare metal at this point. I used your average metal primer, but I'm sure you can probably find high temp and other specialty primers. My place was just out and I didn't feel like running all over town looking for it. Light coats people. I can't stress this enough. One thick cost is going to chip and peel. I hit the VC with about 6-7 very light coats of primer and it actually filled in some of the small scratches. It left the whole thing looking smooth and begging for paint.
7. Painting.
This is where personal preference comes into play. Red, Blue, Silver, Gunmetal... Whatever it is, make sure it's high temp. If it's not high temp, the paint won't last. Basically do it the same way you did the primer. Light coats and let the coats get tacky between sprays (5-7 min.). Most wheel and caliper paints fit into the high temp category. After that you are done and it should look alot like this depending on the color...
8. Optional clear coat.
I chose not to clear coat, but you might want a glossier finish. In this case, you would just pick up a high temp gloss and do LIGHT COATS ontop of the color coat. Let it dry completely and then you're totally done.
9. Put the VC back on.
Put on new gasket w/ sealant and reverse step #1. There you should be completely done with a brand new colored VC.
10. Show off.
Pop your hood for everyone you know, car nut of not. Grandmothers, parents, neighbors dog, homeless guys, etc. Your done...
Estimated time: Could be done in a day but alot of paint and wait. Expect to have the VC off for at least 5-7 hrs.
Cost: $15-30. This depends on clear coat, type of paint, etc. My project cost $18.78 total but I had degreaser & masking tape.
Difficulty (1-5): 2. If you know how to spray paint and spray water, this is in total reach of the inexperenced hands. Hardest part is getting the VC off.
I hope this helped and if anyone could PM me and tell me how to get Imagestation pictures to show automatically here I'd appreciate it. Thanks and enjoy!
Chad Sullivan // 04 S2000 // 97 DX Hatch
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