Ranger finishing touches

If you remember, our Ranger had a custom painted copper engine freshly installed recently. With the said we decided  that the old polished chrome valve covers just wouldn't cut it. Unfortunately, no one makes a copper valve cover for our truck or any sbf engine for that matter. But its okay we have a solution that's both cheap and matches our color perfectly. The cheap comes in because we're painting our old covers so it only costs about $25 in paint and takes roughly a day to complete (only a few hours of work, the rest is dry times) plus we can use our very same engine paint, so it matches perfectly.

Start by removing the covers and thoroughly cleaning them using a degreaser and then a good soapy water mix wash (must make sure all oil, oil vapor, grease and grime are off).

Next I used a 220 grit sand paper to rough the surface a bit and remove any imperfections and scratches from the covers. Afterward I repeated the wash to prep for painting. Just to be sure.

Now I started with painting the whole valve cover the copper color. This allowed me to make sure all the surface was covered in high temp paint, before moving on to the details. After allowing the copper to thoroughly dry. I got a touch-up paint stick from my local auto parts store and got to work. This is the difficult part so take your time and be patient. I will admit I'm not the best with a brush but the new style "marker" type touch up pens make it a lot easier for someone with my non-painting skill set to pull off a job well done.

The reason I coated the entire cover with copper instead of taping off the black was two fold. First taping off the covers details seemed nearly impossible. Second I wasn't sure the touch up paint wouldn't just burn off when the engine got hot, so  the copper acts as a heat barrier or so I hoped. And I was correct the copper did/has acts like a shield and no black has burned off.

I did not clear the cover because we wanted a flat sheen and even the satin clear seem to be to "shiny", but above you can see our finished product!