Cobra valve cover paint

  • I alternate between the chrome valve covers and a set of the black wrinkle finish closed letter Cobra covers I bought back around 1980. I’d like to refinish them in a color that resembles the 65 open letter covers. Looking at online pictures I’m wondering if I need some sort of gray or maybe flat or dull aluminum. Is there a better choice?

    I’ve repainted the black a couple times, if I remember, the natural finish is not what I’m looking for and it is not very smooth, probably why they use wrinkle paint.

  • If the covers were polished, you can come close to duplicating the original cast finish, but you need to know what you're doing, as it involves sandblasting and acid. Blast with a course fresh garnet, like 30/60. Aluminum oxide works too, it's just more expensive. Then blast with glass-bead to take some of the roughness out. Rinse off dust with distilled water, and let dry. Spray with an acid etch wheel cleaner and let stand for a couple minutes, then flush with clean water to completely remove the acid. Finally rinse with distilled water and let dry, making sure it doesn't puddle on surfaces. These should be pretty close to as-cast, and you can sand the fins to highlight them. Keep in mind, they will get dirty. If you clearcoat paint them, that's up to you, but not original. I've done this myself and had good success.

  • Probably want to stay with paint as I’m likely to want to back to black in a couple years. I have a store nearby (TP Tools) that does a lot of automotive restoration stuff and they have VHT flat aluminum paint.

    I’m thinking if I do this, maybe the VHT or Eastwood Aluma Blast is what I’m looking for. As stated earlier, I seem to recall the natural finish is very rough probably because they were going to be painted with the wrinkle paint.

    I don’t have access to blasting stuff now a days. When I put on my intake years back, I had it blasted and cleared it. I’m running a Muscle Parts ‘Ford’ lettered intake.

    Edited 3 times, last by 289kford (February 24, 2023 at 1:20 AM).

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