Cadillac Owners Forum banner

How do you SAFELY clean the valve covers?

5K views 23 replies 5 participants last post by  Faded Crest 
#1 ·
With the engine out, and apart for Head Gasket repair, it seems like a good time to clean everything up. My valve covers are yucky, and peeling. Definitely in need of cleanup & painting.

What is a decent, safe way (as in easy) to get them clean? Bead blasting? Sand blasting (likely not)? Some sort of chemical solution? And then, can they be powder-coated at the local paint shop? Or just do rattle-can painting.

Cheers,
Steve
 
#2 ·
I plan to media blast if I have to but I heard the old paint/powder coat is pretty stubborn. Hopefully MoistCabbage will chime in. We were discussing this subject in my thread last night.
 
#3 ·
The marine industry uses a lot of baking soda blasting - not only because it's environmentally safe but because it really eats stuff off fiberglass. Valve (cam) covers are easy to clean after any sort of blasting - but be careful - you're not cleaning steel ! Use solvent, then soap & water, dry. Powder coat.
 
#4 ·
Sub,

Not too many big marine facilities in SE Kansas, but there must be several aviation shops in the Wichita area that do similar work. I'll be checking them out.

On the powder coating, I assume that you do NOT coat the inside? And have you any experience with the DIY kits & kitchen oven technique?

Cheers,
Steve
 
#7 ·
On the powder coating, I assume that you do NOT coat the inside? And have you any experience with the DIY kits & kitchen oven technique
^^^ As above.

One of our car club members near here is a restorer - he powder coats in his garage and has done small parts for me. The process takes some specialized tools but it is not rocket science.
 
#16 ·
Yup, 89 falcon painted them

NOT painted.....COATED! :lies:

I had a set sitting in the garage, and now my wife is thankful that they are gone.

Crest, I grew up is South Cackalacki...just down I77.....north of the Sewer of the state (columbia) and the University of South Carolina (was that redundant? Go Tigers!), but now call Colorado home. If I was near you, I'd gladly let you use some of my powder and my gun. I probably have about $250 or less sunk into powder (I have a few colors) and equipment (gun....I already had a nice size air compressor.

FWIW, if you clean up your block, and do a more complete rebuild, you'll find that the block fits nicely into a conventional kitchen oven......and looks VERY good with clear over chrome powder....and will stay MUCH cleaner. Vince (a good friend and even better guy) also has my old block, which is coated, if you want to see pics of what that looks like coated...but that's a longer story with other players that's probably not suited for the boards...:D
Vince is the unluckiest N* owner on the planet...his rebuilds have required 3 different blocks, at least one new crank and many new rods. Most of us find the bottom end of our N*s in great shape, but the person doing Vince's build has discovered problems with almost all of his parts......:hmm:
 
#18 ·
Yeah, reading Vincent's head gasket thread has me a little paranoid. :lol:

Well Hopefully we will be out in Arizona before too long... That's our plan, just have to tie up some loose ends (sell the stupid house). The Charlotte area just isn't for me. I'm from New England originally and am ready for a big change.

I am kicking myself for selling my 80 gal compressor a few years ago. :duh: I was just so burned out on car stuff after the car lot years that I couldn't imagine I'd ever get back into it. But your powder coating has me intrigued, so maybe I'll give it a try someday...

But for now I've got other fish to fry so I'll probably just find someone around here to do it for me.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top