Paint or Polish - Your vote counts! *UPDATED* work complete - now with pics!
Ok, so time for a bit of aesthetic superficiallity that usually only the 500 owers get to indulge in ;-)
Just got my OM617 Valve cover back from being vapour cleaned (like blast cleaning but with ultra-fine abrasive in water solution) - looks great though when this clean you can see all of the usual casting imperfections that never show up in ususal oxide state.
Though this engine is gong to go in a few months anyway, I'll probably keep it for another use, so the question is now should I polish it up or go with black to match up with the rest of the trimming on the vehicle (which is dark metallic grey body and satin>flat black font end/ arches, bumpers etc).
Polished
+ Probably about 3 hours to do, can look great - the rest of my engine bay is now super clean too (new hoses, pipework & stainless braided throughout, all aluminium parts sodablasted, everything steel being yellow chromated.
- won't polish out some imperfections anyway and will either need regular re-polishing or will quickly re-tarnish. Can look a bit muscle car bling..
Powdered
+ Probably about £30 to do - I'll go with a flat>satin black probably (though maybe post box red to match my springs?). Again could look great, especially with yellow and polished parts against it. Very durable, low maintenance.
- Have to be super careful not to get power on inside (not good to have paint flaking off!).
So your vote counts, vote:
1. For polished (because everyone likes to see their face in the engine)
2. Powdered - Black (because after all its sooo tacticool)
3. Powdered - Postbox red (because cuffs and tails really should match)
4. Some other colour?
5. Neither, you obviously have too much time on your hands..just put the damn thing back together and drive it
:D
you could give it a high temp resistant laquer.
i would powder coat it silver.
rgds hus
My choice would be from silver to no darker than gun-metal grey.
red..same as brake calipers..or yellow.. even better...like a Ferrari
You could have it anodised or if you really want some bling have it chromed...........then get a perspex bonnet . : )
Steve
Paint it with regular base coat and clear you wont need high temp specialist stuff for this part! powder coating doesnt give as flat a surface, just make sure the part is primed with a decent primer suitable for alloys!
.. but powder is more durable in my experience? 'flatness' probably isn't so much an issuer wit this part (castings aren't perfect to begin with), so any advantage to prime, spray and clear?
It would take out all the imperfections if you primed it! plus if it ever needed reworked if it was damaged chipped etc, its much easier to deal with paint than powder coat! simply it would be a better finish!
Powder coating can damage certain alloy parts as well making them softer than usual. Alloy wheels are a perfect example, we are finding loads that are getting flat spots etc after powder coating as it changes the alloy compound the temperature they are baked to!
Really? I wouldn't have expected the tempetratures in a powder coating (which is typically c. 180C I think ) to have been enough to change the properties of and Al/Mg rim (which are often annealed at > 500C I think) - obviously I guess it depends on who does the powder and what temp/ duration they use.
Either way, the valve cover is also a AL/Mg casting, but has no significant structural load and I don't think it would matter in this case.
Durability and scratch/ chip resistance are important though. I do have some other parts that are sprayed under the hood brake cylinder, air-intake have both been redone with POR15 for example, they look great, but wouldn't stand having tools repeatedly laid down on them for example (the valve cover invariably does), so I'll have to think about the tradeoff.
Right now, I'm leaning toward very dark matt grey.
The equipment we looked at heated the parts to 220, apparently the alloy starts to change at 240, I dont know what changes if they are heat set or something along those lines, but the manufacturer and the seller of the equipment gave us these stats. We spend £60k setting up our alloy wheel refurbishment centre and decided against powder coating as we spoke to that many people that had problems with flat spots on their wheels after coating!
Nevertheless I think you have made your mind up, powder coating is allot harder finish then paint without a doubt if its durability your after!
Well the votes are in and the valve cover was dropped in to my friend Dave at Crystal Finishes in Aldershot this morning!
What colour? Well in the end it was an easy decision.. Dave was doing a run on matt black this morning and tagging this on the end along with my side steps meant no setup or other costs. I think it will look good, especially since all of the other metalwork has just been freshly yellow chromated.
As a side note - the original mottled staining (which comes from impregnation of silicon from the casting process) started to return after just 3 days back from the vapour cleaner.. Although it would have polished up, it would have retained this staining so I thinking painting it was going to be the way to go.
We'll see how it looks this PM :-)
Dam - was going to go for Option 6 - Some Hammerite Black....... :)
Post the pics when done!
Spider1V
Powder coating will probably be a bit hammerite.. as previousl poster said it won't be a mirror polished finish for sure, but definitely more durable.. I'll collect within the hour!
I did the valve clearances and re-fitted the newly powdered black valve cover to my Truck at the weekend. Though I haven't got everything back from the Zinc Chromaters, I think it's starting to come together :-)
Pics from my Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/benstoneham/sets/72157632223183073/
looks good fcp ! great detailing in the engine bay....
i would have gone for.....
but its not important.
now go get it muddy !!
rgds hus
Nice Job.
Thats looking pretty good.
One things for sure though, your welding in the other pictures is pretty impressive!!
It would be a shame to take that truck offroading.
But then again, what was the G designed for?
Nice detailing job
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Anodising would be cool, but unfortunately castings like this for the most part don't anodise properly due to a combination of the alloy used (not high enough aluminium content) and the contamination of silicon which gets into the casting surface.
If you try (other than potentially wrecking the anodising bath), you wind up with either no effect, a very blotchy or very washed out colour (usually a combination of the last two).