The head bolts there referring too are torque to yield bolts. When you see a torque spec the say's tighten to (x) lbs the a additional (x) degree's they are bolts that are a 1 time use only. If the spec was tighten to (x) lbs they are re-useable bolts.

 

I Got a couple chances to work on it lately, and managed to get the heads all on and torqued down, all but one rocker arm, back on, and torqued down, In my move I seemed to have lost a push rod somewhere, so I ordered up a new one of those, and I got the lower intake back on and torqued down. I have the upper intake but I only have it set in place for now, in case I need move it out of the way to do something else. Next up is exhaust and manifold reinstallation, upper intake, and fuel system.

Also up next is valve covers and cooling system. Since I can't find any cool after market valve covers, I'm going to clean up the ones I have, and paint them red myself. I decided to stick with the Black/Silver/Red color scheme with my dress ups. These plastic beige color valve covers are ugly, and the only other available ones are the Black Dorman's, so I thought I would first try and paint these, with a plan B to go with the Black Dorman's, in case plan A fails.

 

Looks like good progress.

A couple of notes about the valve covers:
1. - the 3800 powered 98-02 Camaros and Firebirds have aluminum valve covers that fit the L36. Not anything super fancy, but I'm a fan of the brushed metal look. I have a set on my Monte.
2. - If you still have the front tan/beige valve cover, sounds like this car never got the valve cover recall GM is pushing. They replace the front valve cover with a black plastic one and a new gasket.

Keep up the progress

 

Thanks for the tip on the aluminum valve covers, perhaps I can find a set and powder coat them!

 

I got thinking about it, and thought "you know what that could look pretty good", so I took a couple pieces of aluminum used on the engine, a motor mount piece, and the belt tensioner, and commenced to shine them up using nylon and brass wire wheels. Two hours later, they cleaned up pretty nice but didn't have "The Shine" I was looking for, so I broke out the steel wire wheels. I previously hadn't used them because I thought they might be too harsh, well much to my delight, they worked very nicely, and got me "The Shine" I was looking for. I ran out of battery power so its not complete but I did take some preliminary pictures.
The question now is: How do I keep it looking shiny? I'm sure the gray I'm cleaning off is an anti corrosive of some sort, so I'm going to need a high temp clear coat of some type, any ideas?
Top photo : Partially brushed motor mount,
Mid photo : Partially brushed tensioner
Bottom Photo : Motor Mount, and Old Fuel regulator ( alleged initial problem ) before photo, Also my boat shoe lol, All that white is all corrosion, I didn't take a before pic of the tensioner but it looked almost as white!

 

To start, I've never tried to seal aluminum as rough as what you've got, the stuff I've done has all been mirror polished.

There are 2 ways that I know of - sealer and clear coat. For clear, they sell clear specific for direct on metal (Eastwood sells some, I'm sure they carry some at local paint shops too). I've never liked this stuff as I've always had adhesion issues. The reason I mentioned that first sentence is because yours is so much rougher, it may have enough bite to hold a clear coat, I just haven't had any luck.

The other option is a sealer. Zoop seal used to be the big one, but they're closed. Plenty of metal sealer polishes out there that do the same thing. I will say, there are 2 things about a sealer - for mirror polish surfaces, it seems to dull it up a touch from a fresh polish look. On yours, you probably wouldn't be able to tell though. The other thing is that aluminum forms an oxide skin quickly- you want to clean that off right before you seal it to lock in that finish on actual bare aluminum.

 

Thanks Bump, I'm not at this time looking for a "mirror polish" , I dont really have the financial means, and I want to keep the original parts and just shine them up, and keep the shine, I appreciate your suggestions! Thank You

 

I have a variety of wire wheels (steel and brass), dremel sanding drums and grinding bits, pads for the drill and dremel that are like scotchbrite, that I went nuts with to get a look I was happy with. Can be quite the journey! And anything for the dremel, go to these guys, it's usually DIRT cheap:
https://widgetsupply.com/

As for keeping it that way, I used high temp clear coat. Since I did not go for mirror finish, the metal was still had pours and such (and I did not know anything better) and it all worked pretty well. My valve covers were done by the previous owner, but I did the upper intake, throttle body, thermostat housing and a couple other things. The ONLY issue I have is the upper intake, a small section the clear yellowed. But over all, not a big big deal.

Keep up the work!! I am sure that once you get to where you are happy, it will look GREAT!!!

 

Yes Maniac, Dremel, I didn't think about that, but yeah I could get down in the cracks and crevices I currently can't reach with the drill ! I'm debating taking the intake back off while its convienient and putting the steel wheel to the parts of that, that will be visible. I've decided against the L26 Upper for now because of the color scheme for the Model, Black/Silver/Red/ with white numbers. So with nice shiny aluminum ( silver-ish ) mated up with the black plastic intake, and either black or red valve covers, I'll be true to the color scheme, instead of mirror finish, I'm going to stick with shined up original parts, so it still remains original.
I know you are a fan of the polished aluminum, but I'm kinda set on red valve covers to offset the black upper intake, and silver lower. Maybe if I'm lucky, I can get a DE signature painted in the front valve cover.
I plan to have this car for a long time, so the way I see it, I have plenty of time to think about how I want it to look, and plan to spend years building it into what I want, yet still keeping it true to Dale, and the original car.

 

Next up is exhaust ! Car has original exhaust, but it is looking like exhaust would, its in great shape, just that hot burned rusty look. Appears to have a headers look, separate pipes that go into one. Are these worth cleaning up with wire wheel and high temp painting? Or should I just reinstall these as they are since even High temp paint would probably burn off?

Ya all know how it is :-) this wasn't planned as part of the project, but once you get going, just always something next you want to do lol!