About a month and a half ago a buddy of mine came over with a bumper filler panel off a 61 Starliner he's putting together as a 70th b-day present for his dad. He was using my media blast cabinet to clean off the paint and was planning on spraying some Krylon and reinstalling. Well, I had him strip the paint, I smoothed out some dings with the hammer and dolly, and here's how I finished it, using some of my Imron rather than his Krylon... Well I stopped by to check it out after he installed it, and noticed the valve covers looked like someone had changed out the intake and dropped it a few times on the valve covers. So he dropped them off for some dent repair this evening... All of these tools were used this evening at one point or another... Dents were worked with various implements of destruction, filed to find the high spots, and low spots bumped up, then repeat. As they will be painted, we'll leave off with the following.... Sandblasting and some H/K epoxy primer will take care of any remaining defects...
Wow Mac, thats some very nice metalfinishing! Show's what's possible if you extend the effort. Thanx for another great post on metalworking.
Thanks pimpin, I had a suggestion to use a laser aimed at the "dolly tip" on the anvil for more accurate work next time. I'll have to see if my laser level has the single dot option. As tomorrow is supposed to warm up a bit, I'm going to try and spray some epoxy primer to get them ready for the gold paint. Here they are all sandblasted, hot tanked, and ready to go....
Thanks for the comments guys! Here's the official 2 x 8 valve cover paint fixtures... A couple coats of H/K epoxy and a guide coat and we'll let it sit a couple days....
We had a couple sand-throughs on the valve covers, so some epoxy was mixed and reduced 10% to use as a sealer.... Here's the paint code for the early 60's Hi-po 390... Used acrylic enamel. Finished up, looks quite a bit smoother than before.... Other than wet sanding the epoxy primer, no filler used...
I've got about 15 to 20 pair of Steel FE valve covers some needing repair but some already chromed or restored and a few that are powercoated. Some of my Merc Lightening bolt, E-400 and Thunderbird block lettered need minor "dings" worked out. I'll be rereading your process as I continue- move on. Here is a picture of one I need to fix a dent and a completed pair I bought Thanks.
Thanks for the comments! I think next time I tackle another set I'll use the red lazer dot aimed at the dolly/anvil for a better job of locating the low spots when bumping...
Great job and beautiful results. Lots of work there. Hope you will post some pics of your buddy's Starliner as it comes to completion. Thanks, Don.
Sanding around the letters was the fun part... Hint: wrap some w/d paper around a body filler spreader. Will do. It's pretty sharp, was a garage kept drag car. Where he had to find heater box, etc to install back in it, the paint is real presentable (one repaint) and no rust issues to deal with.
I like the dollies made for fitting to the anvil! I'm going to head out to my lathe and make some! Way better than squeezing them in a vice, and much quicker setup!
Valve covers, oil pans, air cleaner housings and vintage tool boxes are a GREAT way for beginners to learn some basic metal bumping skills. Those valve covers of yours turned out GREAT. Can you describe what you mean by using the laser pointer? i think I have an idea, but a photo would help a lot. -Brad
Thanks for the comments guys. Brad, looking at this first pic..... the rounded end steel rod has the bottom end tapered to fit the hole in the anvil. The 2" round was just held inside flatwise as a dolly for the radius and is just sitting there for the picture, disregard that one for a minute. For a dolly against the various low spots, I typically held the VC over top of the rounded steel rod, as shown in the background of the above pic. If I had a red laser pointer fixed on/ aimed directly at the center of the steel rod, when the VC was placed over it, the laser would show where to align your low spot for bumping. I did have a couple spots slightly off that I had to regroup on, so using the laser would have been an added benefit of more precise locating to cut some time (and effort) off the process.
nice work would like to find a pair of those covers or two if youve ever pulled a iron f/e intake off an engine in a car you'll completly understand how those dent get there those intakes are some heavy sumbitches
Hows that? You have to pull the valve covers off of an FE first because the intake goes up underneath them.
well ya i guess your right i dont know what i was thinkin sometimes i amaze myself at some of the dumbass stuff i do and say ........
maybe they got mad and threw them accross the garage when the found out how heavy that damn intake was.....i tell ya the intake had to have something to do with it
Nice work, maybe now that I'm inspired i can go out and try to repair my 73-74 only Oldsmobile script valve covers that the seller thrashed with the chain when he loaded the engine ...
Having been around a few FE's I think I can safely say, NO, FE valve covers ever came from Ford looking that good.
As a follow up to the valve cover repairs, the owner has the car just about ready, just needs some tune up work...
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