I've already finished my engine tin in a semi gloss black, thinking about doing the above parts as well. Any opinions?

Gonna do the tin work above the push rod tubes as well as the push rod tubes.

Stephen

If you powder coat the engine bar you will have the prettist one in all the land. You'll have to post pics of it.

But why?

Only thing I can think of is not to PC anything that has a precision or near-precision surface. So don't coat the area of the valve cover where the gasket goes. If you think clearance might be tight with your valve adjusting lugs, don't PC the inside of the cover at all. (It gets covered with oil anyway.)

If you subscribe to the notion that the valve covers dissipate a noticeable amount of heat from the oil, then don't coat them at all, unless the coating helps heat transfer.

Probably don't coat the mounting holes for the engine mount bar or the ends of the mounting holes. The latter depends on how well the PC material (and your prep!) holds up to nut-and-bolt-and-washer pressure.

No reason not to powder-coat the outsides of most things. Not a big reason to coat most of them--but whatever floats your boat!

--DD

It will impress anyone who looks under it, that will mostly be me

I don't think clearence or sealing will be an issue with the valve covers. The current ones are super grungy on the outside and anything at this point will look better. The pushrod tubes are a rusty mess as well, should I just paint them with a high temp silver paint instead? If the tubes get sandblasted i fear that they won't seal well on the end.

Just get some new tubes. By the time you clean and powder coat yours, you won't be far off in price.

My $0.02,
Konrad

I soaked my pushrod tubes in this stuff from Harbor Freight and it seem to remove the rust. I tried it in below 65 degree weather and didn't work very well until we got some warm SoCal winter weather.

http://www.harborfreight.com/1-quart-evapo...mover-96433.htm

I then painted them with VHT high temp paint and baked them out in an old toaster oven.

Figured the rust remover was worth the try for $9 with a 25% coupon before spending $80+ on new tubes.

Engine is far from finished, so can't tell you how they're holding up.

I had my large tins and valve covers powder coated just cause they needed sand blasting which would have cost as much as the powder coating which includes the clean-up. The shop I brought them to had a $75 minimum charge so I wish I were more organized and brought them more pieces.

I think engine paint is all that's needed on these tubes, it's not as hot as exhaust parts. I do like the way you think. I made the mistake of having parts sandblasted months before they were powder coated, forget that let the shop do it all at once which is what that want to make sure it's blasted to the right texture and is clean of grease and rust.

I may just hit the tubes with my wire wheel and see how they look. If there is some rust left I may treat them with my Ospro and let them be.

Besides new gaskets is there a teflon paste or some other product that should be applied before I reinstall the tubes?

I was thinking about having the heads redone but I think that new heads is actually the way to go. Don't really want to pay for that right now so i'll just run it for a while and overhaul it in the future if I still have it. More fun for me

No he won't. I did mine. got my own blast cabinet and a friend in Sac with a powdercoating shop...

I powder coated the fan pulley and Mark found it screwed up the alignment of the fan IIRC. He fixed it. Don't do that...

Valve Covers, Engine mount cross beam and tin work that goes under the push rod tubes are all nicely power coated.

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