engine cover and paint help please...

[silverbullet]

ok i have been looking around have not been able to find what im looking for. i want to paint my engine cover as well as the cover on what i think is the intake manifold. and on my rear glass hatch there are four tabs that were black at one point but some are cracked and peeling off. the engine cover is straight forward but how does the other cover below it come off? can i just use regular paint or high heat, and should i wet sand it or anything? and do you think i should just strip the finish the rest of the way off the tabs and paint them? o and will it matter if i paint in the cold?

[keithvibe]

Got a picture?I don't have a clue what cover you are talking about.

[silverbullet]

i can get off the cover with the lettering on it the one i dont know about is the one below that, you can see the dipstick coming through it

[keithvibe]

That is not a cover that is your Intake Manifold, it's made out of plastic. It's all one piece.Painting the items in the cold is a bad idea. It will not cure correctly and most likely it will end up chipping off or pealing off.I would wait till the summer to do it.When I paint headlights, even though I paint them in my heated basement, I still heat up my retrofit oven to 200deg, then turn it off and place the freshly painted piece in the warm oven and I leave it there till it is baked dry.

[silverbullet]

oh i see. well thanks i assumed it was a cover on the manifold. assuming i wait till summer do you think i could hand paint it? i had a feeling the temperature would be an issue, ill probably take the cover inside and paint. do you think any heat resistant paint would be necessary?

[jkm311]

Unless you put on incredibly thin coats, one after another (with the appropriate drying time in between), hand-painting won't turn out well vs. spray (especially around the lettering). It looks inconsistent and messy, in my opinion. Unless someone else rings in with a good way to do it, hand-painting plastic just doesn't look as nice as THIN coats of spray paint (high-heat, at that). I know Michelle (Ponta2147) had success with handing-painting the metal of her brake calipers, but that's a different animal than plastic. The nice thing about the engine cover is it is not needed for daily driving, so you can bring it in out of these cold January days to have a bit of customizing fun with it, and to get the plastic to room temperature. My suggestion would be to carefully remove your engine cover (the plastic plugs towards the back break easily, but I was able to remove them cleanly), then clean it with warm water and dish soap. Clean it so as to remove as many patches of dirty and grime. Try not to use oily cleaners (Goo Gone), as they are tough to remove (and have paint cure over). And one thing I wish I had done when I did my cover was take a very high grit sandpaper (4,000+) and lightly wet sand around the oil cap area. Even if you do change your oil yourself, it's easy to get a drip or two on the cover from time to time. If left unattended, it's easy for even high-heat spray paint to not cure evenly when there is oil on the cover. Let the cover dry completely (you might need a hair dryer, as most of our covers have some padding underneath that you will need to dry out). Or, just make sure to only wash the top and sides, without submerging the entire cover in water. For dirt underneath, just take a moist towel and give it a quick wipe down. Make sure the cover is dry, as the slightest drop of water can goof up your painting efforts.I started with a can of clear primer to make the cover tacky to the touch. Follow the time intervals for coats on the can (it's good to have the base coat semi-dry, as the paint coats that will follow have a little something extra to bond to). After that, it's all about THIN, THIN, THIN coats. It may be tempting to keep covering spots, but just get them on the next coat. My cover turned out about 90% to my liking following the directions on the paint cans. It became addicting to the point I was doing the cover for my washer fluid, fuse box, etc. I was pleased with the results, and it makes my engine bay pop. Especially when I keep the black, unpainted parts clean and shiny.For the finishing touch (depending on what color you go with), GrafxWerks.com sells these bad boys: As for the black metal circle caps on the end of your hatch glass pneumatic arms (I assume that's what you mean), my guess is these are a better candidate for hand-painting in black. I have tried again and again to do these on my wife's Malibu Maxx, and to no avail. Good luck, fellow Michigander!

[silverbullet]

jkm thanks a lot for the tips ill follow that to paint the cover. plan on getting at least that part done soon. but as for the hand painting i was thinking for the intake manifold, since it wouldnt be quite so easy to remove and paint, or i wonder if i could get creative enough with newspaper and tape to spray it. hmmm...? im thinking bad idea

[jkm311]

Quote, originally posted by silverbullet » im thinking bad idea Me, too.I'd be amazed if you'd be able to contort your hands comfortably with a paint-covered brush to get the job done right. I know I wouldn't! And if you end up going the newspaper-tape-and-spray route, gravity might not be your friend if you put a coat on a bit too thick. The angles on that manifold cover would lead to drip...drip...drip down the front. I have to think that our covers keep turning out so well for us here, simply due to the fact that we can remove them (constantly getting a good spraying angle, even coverage, etc.).i was happy leaving the manifold black, as I am trying to keep a black, red and white theme going. So, it actually worked out for me having the black manifold butted up against the red-painted color. But, to each his/her own. Plus, you'd have to wait out a few cold Michigan months to paint a manifold attached to your engine. Good luck, whatever you decide to do. And as always, we love/crave/demand pics of your work around here.

[silverbullet]

i just read in another thread that its very common for the intake manifold gasket to go bad and does not sound that bad to remove the whole thing. and if theres a good chance ill have to do it anyway eventually then i dont think i have too much to lose and get it all painted pretty. and hopefully in the next couple weeks ill get a few things i have planned taken care of, of course pics will follow. thanks a lot for the info guys

[ponta2147]

I just wanted to say that when I painted my engine cover, I used the plastic spray paint for cars and it's held up very well. It basically bonds to the plastic and becomes a permanent part of it.Then I took some model paint (Chris said he used to paint model rockets with it, that's enough high heat for me!) and painted the letters... though I would probably purchase the letter stickers from grafxwerks if I had a do-over (they didn't exist for the '09s at the time I did it)

[silverbullet]

ive looked at that plastic spray paint and looks like it would work well. but i plan on painting the intake manifold at the same time. and i dont think it would be much but i would think some heat would be generated, so im thinking high heat paint. ill have to pop the hood after a long drive and see what it feels like i guess. and i do plan on getting the grafxworks letters

[silverbullet]

[/QUOTE] As for the black metal circle caps on the end of your hatch glass pneumatic arms (I assume that's what you mean), my guess is these are a better candidate for hand-painting in black. I have tried again and again to do these on my wife's Malibu Maxx, and to no avail. Good luck, fellow Michigander! [/QUOTE] here could be a possible solution for us. http://www.grafxwerks.com/shop...-1430 if we could get one to fit would not this work and probably be a permanent fix assuming they stay on. could anyone comment who has used these yet? is there just adhesive on the back? im hoping this would work

[Serj22]

Pull the cover off, remove the valve cover bolts, paint the valve cover itself with high temp, and bake it. The plastic cover is not pretty IMO, I love looking at the top of a freshly painted (not silver) valve cover, plus it opens up the engine bay a little more and gets rid of the "Engines are complicated, hide the scariness" thing. I say get rid of it altogether. That's what I'll be doing when it warms up a little, then spray a little bit of red hammered finish onto it and finish with some gold edging. Will look awesome. Just an idea, the K-24 out of my Cr-v, I painted the valve cover on.and the civic:Way better than a cover IMO, no matter what you do... it's still plastic. if you want to know how to paint the VC itself, the body of the car or any other metal part, I can help you with that and teach you how to do it, but I've never had a piece of plastic keep the paint on EVER.