My front valve cover has a ton of paint chipping off. Not sure if I will remove the paint and then have it painted powdercoated or polished. I can't remember where I read it but someone used something like brake kleen or something like that and it removed all the black paint off of their valve cover super fast so it was ready to be polished or painted.

Any ideas?

I'm tempted to polish my upper plenum myself. I know it takes a lot of time. Right now I have more time than money so if any of you have polished parts chime in and let me know how yours turned out.

Kyle

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93 3000 GT VR4

I've polished my transmission, plenum, and a few other misc parts. It's pretty easy, but time consuming.

The hard way is to use sandpaper starting with about 120 grit and work your way up to 2000 grit. Then you can use 0000 steel wool and some car wax to bring it to a decent shine. It will probably take you 5-6 hours this way.

The easy way is to get a 4 bar polishing compound set from sears and a buffing wheel. You can do it this way in about 2 hours or maybe quicker.

The plenum took me about 12 hours the hard way. The entire transmission took me about 15 hours the easy way, but I had to bead blast it first to get some of the crud off.

Aaron

I've polished a couple of valve covers. I just used sandpaper wheels on my bench grinder and drills to get the paint off. I needed to make the surface smooth for polishing anyways. If you are going to polish it, or anodize it, sanding it off is probably the best thing to do.

later,
Curt

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I'm thinking about buying another valve cover on ebay cheap and polishing that first . If it turns out good then I might put it on the car. In the long run I'm looking at a black powder coated cover and polished plenum. So I could put the polished valve cover on the car while I'm waiting for the other one to be powder coated. Then I could sell the polished one and get my money back. I really like the look of a polished plenum and right now is the time for me to do it. I will probably won't put plates on the car for another month.

Kyle

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93 3000 GT VR4

YOU POLISHED YOUR TRANSMISSION?!?!

Jesse, is that you?!

I am jealous and need this mod now! Okay, how much we talking?

Wow, I am impressed.

SJ

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Racing is life. Everything else is just waiting.

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Some have mentioned the Sears buffing kit but I also found this set. Looks pretty good because you get a few different shaped wheels. Granted its more but you get more.

Sears
http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product. ... Cookie=Yes

Other:
http://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/alpolkit.htm

I have a feeling that if polishing up one part looks good I will probably do more.

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93 3000 GT VR4

The Caswell one looks o.k. I bought all of my stuff from Eastwood Company: http://www.eastwoodco.com/ They sell top notch compounds and buffer wheels.

later,
Curt

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I'd agree with Curt -- IMHO, I'm not sure there is anyone better than Eastwood when it comes to this kind of stuff.

SJ

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Racing is life. Everything else is just waiting.

http://umg.mn3s.org

http://ummo.boards.net

Thanks for the info. Here is their kit I would be interested in. Plus its cheaper than the Caswell kit.

http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?item ... pe=PRODUCT

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93 3000 GT VR4

You have to remember I'm non turbo so you can see alot more of the transmission than you turbo folks.

I wouldn't recommend using an expensive drill for buffing. The drill I used is now making a whirring noise. I think I might have toasted some bearings in it.