Help me with cleaning and polishing
 

Hey Guys,

I picked these aluminum valve covers and air cleaner cover up from a guy I know.....they obviously have been sitting around awhile.....I tryed to rub a little polish on them, but I think they'll need something more....Looks like he tryed to blast the air cleaner cover.....They are also missing a few of those allen heads on one cover....
I need ideas on how I should clean these up??...Do I bead blast them? how about sand blast?...once I do that, I want to polish these up and thinking about painting the finned area chevy orange to match the block.....what do you think??....I appreciate any input!!!

Re: Help me with cleaning and polishing
 

Geoff, picked up the same ones for my sons truck sans breather. bought a polishing kit from homedepot and chucked it in my 18 volt drill, and went to work, let me see if i have any pics.

Re: Help me with cleaning and polishing
 

Also the Eastwood Company has polishing kit for just what you are working on.

Re: Help me with cleaning and polishing
 

Okay...this is a good start....

Heath, would you mind posting up those pics if you got'em....also, what the kit was called at Home Depot, and any other info that would help me....Thanks!

Re: Help me with cleaning and polishing
 

if there aren't a lot of grease stains soaked into the pores of the metal try some elephant wool. it is super easy and inexpensive. then go over it with a liquid based polish to protect it. for the broken screws, find some screws with heads that are a close match, then drill and tap the place where the screw heads went. cut the screw to a length that would make it flush with the inside of the valve cover. seal it with high temp epoxy to lock the screw in place, and your done.

Re: Help me with cleaning and polishing
 

those are plastic inserts, not screw, mine are missing a few as well....

Re: Help me with cleaning and polishing
 

I'm not sure if they still do it but Edelbrock used to send out replacement rivits for free. I got a set of those valve covers on a car I bought and called them looking to buy replacements for lost ones. They sent them to me for free. It 's worth a shot.

Re: Help me with cleaning and polishing
 

elephant wool, may have to check into that. Geoff, it's a Ryobi brand metal polishing kit, and it was in the tool corral. I had a bench grinder with buffing pads which is ideal, but have not found it since i moved 8 years ago :lol:

i have about 30 minutes of polishing into each one thus far, and they could use some more, but 100 % better than before.


make sure to remove those plastic allen inserts or you will burn em while buffing... ask me how i know they are plastic now......

Re: Help me with cleaning and polishing
 

Thanks ratrod, ill give em a buzz as well.

Re: Help me with cleaning and polishing
 

Heath,

thanks for the pics and info....I saw that setup online today.....So will that work on a cordless drill??....does it come with all the polishing compound as well??.....

By the way, I see Summit has packages of 10 allen head plastic screws for $3.25....BUT heck if we can get them free, I'll go that route, but if not, maybe I'll have some left over if you need some....I guess this means I need to order more stuff from Summit to make the "shipping" worth my while!!!:lol:

Oh, beautimus, I googled elephant wool too....where the heck can one find that stuff??....got any details on how to use it??

Thanks for all the input!!!

Re: Help me with cleaning and polishing
 

Geoff,

I comes with the compund , I used it with my 18volt milwaukee on speed 2, seems to work good....

Re: Help me with cleaning and polishing
 

Found some elephant brand bronze wool used for polishing boat/yacht brightwork. see page 12 on the below link.

http://www.yachtemporium.com/YachtEm...aintenance.pdf