Cleaning cam covers (pre-paint) & what paint to use - update: blasted

Loctite do an amazing spray-degreaser the i managed to get a can of from a friend in the army, not sure if you can buy it normally but its great stuff that ate straight through a mixture of gearbox oil and CV grease that had baked itself onto my exhaust manifold. Not sure on what it's called exactly but it comes in a 500ml aerosol and smells like oranges

 

^^ i find those "i have this amazing stuff, that does this and that but you can't buy it" posts..... very helpfull

 

http://www.google.co.uk/products?hl...a=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

 

Quality!

 

From this:



A lazy wire brushing and a bottle of brake cleaner later:



Dishwashered:



Media blasted:



Cheers to all for the various input and Barny for doing the blasting

Now just to find a colour to paint it with. May do a high temp clear laquer, for fear of otherwise tackifying it! Maybe a grey/anthracite.

 

If you want to leave the raised fin surfaces unpainted, what I did was to paint the whole cover fully with a few coats, let it go off and set. Using wet 'n' dry paper wrapped around a block of wood, take the paint off the top of the fins with long even strokes along the length. I left mine with a coarse brushed finish using 200 grit paper. The fins have developed no oxidisation in the years that the cover has been in various cars.

Gurds

 

Painted (first coat - might need some more):



Nearest colour I could find to what I was after - greys were no use & no anthracite:

 

just make sure the misses is out before you start loading it up with engine parts.

 

sorry i was looking at the wrong page when i said that