Valve Cover - Pics
 

Before:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...a/fcc4ebc7.jpg

After:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...c/fcc4ebc4.jpg

Finally: A little polish and sanding.......Bling! Bling! Thanx blueLedz
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...0/fcc4fd25.jpg

Hey Protege King, looks nice but you should remove ".orig.jpg" at the end of all your links to image station to make them work.

Jeez.............
 

Just when I thought I knew what I was doing. Thanx SedanMan. Good thing I don't work on my car the same way I work on the computer.

Hey, King. What year is your car, and kind of intake is that?

99 LX 1.6
 

with an injen intake

Looks sweet. 2 more hours of sanding and polishing adn you could have had it looking like chrome:D Thats what my friend did with his civic.

What would be the shiznick....
 

would be to leave the lettering polished and paint the rest of the cover black. hmmm........

I was actually planning on doing that in the summer, paint the valve cover and then sand the paint off the letters and polish them.

shouldn't be too dificult...
 

paint the entire cover with heat resistant paint, then lightly go over the lettering with laquer thinner. Plus I would paint the heat shield at the same time. Just when you do something nice to the car, not even a week later you're then looking to make it look nicer. The saga continues.......................

I was planning on using coarse paper to get the paint off the letters, and then progressively get finer, like maybe go from 80 grit to say 120, and eventually somewhere in the 3-400 grit, maybe finer than that though.
How should I clean it before hand though? I was thinking after I get it off, scrape the old gasket off, then use some degreaser and a scouring pad and scrub the shit out of it, followed by maybe some dish soap and hot water or something.
Any comments?? Should I use something different perhaps?? Steel wool maybe??
Also, just to speed up drying it, I was thinking of throwing it in my mom's clothes dryer (its got a rack for drying shoes and stuff) but would that maybe warp it?? Or did I not have to worry about that.

I went from.....
 

220 grit to 600 grit to 1000 grit to 1500 grit. Wetting the sandpaper all the time. Don't jump higher until all imperfections are out. Sand in good light. A little Mother's Aluminum Wax after sanding and BAM! Almost like a mirror finish. Cleaning was a biatchhhhh. If it's somewhat dirty start early and don't make plans any time after that. I watched TV and scrubbed for hours. Used brillo pads, liquid metal cleaner, and major major elbow grease. There might be an easier way to clean it but that's what worked. I would definitely change the valve cover gasket kit and seal it as I am learning that the hard way. Car is not running so smooth and is being looked at next week because a little oil leaked out at first but then didn't after I bought the kit and sealed it right. Although some damage may have been done, hopefully won't be costly.

"A wise man learns from his mistakes, but an even wiser man learns from other's mistakes" - some smart person

Dont dand it, just use a dremmel with a sanding disc. I had my valve cover powder coated. Then I used the dremmel to get the pcoat off of the letters. Then, I used magnesium (aluminum polish) to polish the letteres. Now, i have nice red pcoated valve cover with polished letters!

Hey KDawgONE, do you have pics of your vlave cover. I would like to see how it looks?:)

Nice job. I've been wanting to do that to mine for a long time. Did you have to buy a new valve cover gasket when you reinstalled it?

I would highly recommend it. I used the same one at first and had leakage probelems. Then bought the gasket for like $25 from Mazda, I couldn't find a parts store that carried it. Then sealed it back with the sealer stuff (can't think of the name of it) in the same places the factory seals it.

KDawgONE: Any Pics? I think what you did to yours is what I would like to do to mine in black.