Polished Rocker Covers

[jrocket]

Hey all. I am in the middle of doing a major service on my car n i thought i might polish up the rocker covers while i have them off. Here are some pics showing how good they cam up.

I just used some wet and dry sand paper and some good ol elbow grease. But bugger that i am not going to be polishing another set of covers. Took me bout 2.5 hrs of sanding/polishing for each rocker cover.

What ya all reckon?

Here is another pic of the whole job done^^^^^ hows that?

Edited October 18, 2007 by jrocket

[r33cruiser]

good job man, nothing beats elbow grease. but word to the wise= invest in an air compressor and a set of tools and fittings.

makes a world of difference

[R338OY]

So you just sanded the rocker cover and it came up like that?

Mine looks dull beige

So i can go from this, to what you did?

That'll look great if i can!

[jrocket]

Yeah you can make it look like mine too if you wanted. I will have to get a pic of the whole finished product posted up here. I have it all back together and going now and it looks sweet as.

To get the finish i got i just used wet and dry sand paper and heap of elbow grease. I started out sanding it all down with some 180 grit papaer. I prob spent the most time on this grade because i had to get rid of alot of that white corrosion stuff on the surface and pitting. After i was happy with that grade i then went to 320 grit, then 600 grit, and finally topped it all off with a good sanding of 1000 grit.

After doing all this it still seemed a bit dull and you could see some scratches still in it. I then found some Metal Polish paste and rubbed it down good with that. while using the metal polish, there is alot of black crap that comes off the aluminum. You should see it all starting too look alot shinnier then buff off the residue with another clean rag. After doing this it looked more mirror like and most of the fine scratches were not visible anymore.

Oh by the way, it would be advisable to do it with some sort of power sander or something because my hands were buggered after that. I didn't have any power tools and it took me around 6hrs to do them both.

I am not sure tho how long the shine will last. I will just keep polishing every now and then and see how it goes. I will post some more pics soon.

[r33cruiser]

nice, man ive done the exact same thing.

but i used an air compressor + tools. i didnt use sandpaper tho.

i used these little blue and red sanding pads. they dont look like sand paper. but they did an awesome job. but the problem was it would miss around nipples and stuff, so u did have to do some by hand anyways.

good job, its fun showing off your engine now hey

[jrocket]

Yeah i love it. Its such an inprovement to the engine bay. I was thinking originally to just powder coat the covers but while i had them off i just started having a muck around sanding them a bit to see what it might look like. It looked fairly good so i did the whole thing. I will have to get a shot of my engine bay now. i have already repainted a few things metalic blue and now the rocker covers really start to bring out the bling.

[Trust33]

Hey all. I am in the middle of doing a major service on my car n i thought i might polish up the rocker covers while i have them off. Here are some pics showing how good they cam up.

I just used some wet and dry sand paper and some good ol elbow grease. But bugger that i am not going to be polishing another set of covers. Took me bout 2.5 hrs of sanding/polishing for each rocker cover.

What ya all reckon?

top job.

i dont like the thought of spending 6hrs on it though

good job man, nothing beats elbow grease. but word to the wise= invest in an air compressor and a set of tools and fittings.

makes a world of difference

a cheap dremmel from super cheap.with a poilishing kit from bunnings.and the usual sandpaper.possibly a mouse sander to.just dont sit on one spot for to long with the rough grit paper.

a bench grinder with cutt and buff polishing wheels and the wax blocks to suit.to do the big areas.bit hard though if your polishing the covers on the engine.

[jeffworld2]

put a wire wheel on a high speed drill, or better get a bench grinder with a wire wheel on it, it will leave everything extra shiny as it sort of "melts" it flat if you hold it on long enough. thats how we polish brass at work and has worked on most things ive tried around my car

[H@ME]

looks great man, when i get my 33 back i'll give it a go and put it up for ya.

[jrocket]

Yeah i am interested to see how others go. I will have to stop being a slack ass and get a pic up of the whole finished product for ya all. Will hopefully have that tonite.

[r33cruiser]

yea mate, i will post up some pics of my bay, polished engine really sets it off with chrome cooler piping, plenum, airbox and radiator air guide

[noisia]

do you rekon r32 rocker covers would come out the same finish as r33 rocker covers if i did it?

[R34GTFOUR]

looks good, just make sure you give in a polish everynow and then or it will go dull like before.

Also polsihed alloy doesnt like to get wet, so after a drive in the rain maybe wipe them down with a clean rag, or they tend to go dull aswell.

Good Stuff

[R34GTFOUR]

do you rekon r32 rocker covers would come out the same finish as r33 rocker covers if i did it?

no reason why not, both are alloy, and with a decent polish you should be able to see your face in both haha

[noisia]

haha sweet!

out comes to elbow grease for this one

[jrocket]

I would recommend maybe just trying to polish a small area where you wont see, just to see what it does. I did the inner section that gets covered by the coil pack cover. When it looked good on there i decided to do the whole lot. I was going to do the cast intake section too but i think i might have to get some air tools first to make the job easyier and less time consuming.

[S04R3R]

I am so doing this. I have a die grinder so im set all i need now is some sanding and polishing pads/discs and shiny engine for me

[jrocket]

New pic added ^^^^^

[MattyP]

What would be the best product to maintain a polished engine bay, as I read certain metal polishers aren't that crash hot :S

[jrocket]

I just used a general purpose metal cleaner for all metals. But i think that i will buy some aluminum cleaner and see how that goes. After i sanded my covers down they didn't really look that good. It was only after i hit them with some metal polish that they came up with such a great shine.