I've been looking into painting my engine cover. I bought some high heat duplicolor engine enamel just to be safe, and its a little bit brighter than the color of my car so that it wouldn't look so dark. I'm also planning on cleaning some of the rust up as well.

The one thing I don't like is how nasty the metal between the engine cover looks. What would be the best way to clean that up?

 

It's aluminum right? I would probably remove it and clean it thoroughly with a grease cutter like dish soap. Then I would hit it with an aggressive sandpaper (Like 80 grit) until I reach a smooth layer of metal. Then I would rub it down with a slightly less aggressive paper (like 150 grit). Then I would clean it again and use a high fill primer to remove any sanding marks. Then I would paint! Good luck!

 

Alright thanks, I'll give it a try!

 

Here's where I'm at so far with the paint job, I tried the Vaseline trick on the silver lettering but I didn't put enough on so the paint started to chip on the silver lines which I'm going to touch up. It's a little lighter than what I was lookin for but it's growing on me. I also want to eventually paint the slots at the top of the cover black. Any more ideas or feedback would be great!

 

from the pics it looks like tar heel blue, you a NC fan by any chance lol

you did a great job on it, and i think everything that duplicolor makes is crap ;-P

the top of the intake looks pretty good as well, the easy way to get the rest of that out is to just have it blasted with 120 Alum oxide.. then you can throw a nice contrasting color on it!

 

Looks Nice..

 

haha I didn't even think of the tarheels, i was just thinking that the metallic blue wouldn't be much of a difference. I'm in MI so I suppose I could have painted it yellow for U of M =P

Thanks for the feedback

 

looks good!

 

Very nice!