1990 SW20 MR2 GT Restoration Project

[ToyMonsta]

Well, finished the intercooler apart from the intercooler lettering, and have almost finished the Valve Cover.

I bought new fastenings and some Stainless Steel hex bolts for it, I'm quite pleased with how it's turned out

[ToyMonsta]

So yesterday I spent around 6 hours degreasing, acid washing and media blasting to get rid of all the oxidization on the Valve Cover, it was like rock!, unfortunately it had eaten away at the alloy quite badly and left a lot of pitting.

I then proceeded to blasting it with course Garnet media, you can see the pitting quite clearly as dark spots on the top of the valve cover.

I then polished the inner cover and the baffle plates with glass bead media.

And now for the paint! Never done this before to a valve cover and I'm not sure if I'll like the result, I might even regret painting it instead of leaving it a raw polished Alloy....anyway here goes!
For the Valve Cover I chose to paint it in high temp paint, the red was a little darker than I expected but I'm sure once it's back on the engine with the intercooler it'll look fine?.... Maybe??
I de-nibed the casting using a fine metal file and then washed it in detergent in the tub, the amount of blasting dust still on the casting was quite apparent due to the colour of the water after washing lol
Then proceeded to mask areas that I did not want paint on and then heated the valve cover with a heat gun to about 30 degrees Celsius before dusting on the first coat of primer and then a medium coat and then a final wet coat. I waited approximately 40 minutes before applying the first top coat, I only applied 2 top coats as the final coat I want near perfect so I will be wet sanding the valve cover smooth to knock back any high spots before the final coat.

Note: I will be sanding the paint back to bare alloy on the TOYOTA logo after the final coat and also painting the blow-by tube satin black so hopefully this makes it look a lot less "gimmicky".

[ToyMonsta]

Found this really neat site in the UK that does custom and OEM Decals for MR2 and Celica's as well as other vehicles... check it out

http://decalfever.co.uk/webpages/mr2toyota.html

[Swampy]

Good work, what kind of playing are you using and how much does it cost?

[ToyMonsta]

Good work, what kind of playing are you using and how much does it cost?

Playing?

[ToyMonsta]

Here is the finished Valve cover...

Unfortunately the valve cover got chipped.... must have accidently nicked it with one of my tools, I did end up touching it up with the paint that I used.

I think next time I will use powder coating with 2K Clearcoat, will be much more durable and the finish will look a lot nicer.

[GDII]

Yeah that looks really good. What was done to the TOYOTA lettering?

Is that paint that chipped? Powdercoating is chip resistant but not fool proof. We did it to an SR20DE valve cover and one of the corners got a hammering from taking the engine out of the bay but it never chipped, it just got cut or deformed.

[ToyMonsta]

Yeah that looks really good. What was done to the TOYOTA lettering?

I sanded the paint down to the bare alloy with wet n dry sandpaper and then buffed.