Rocker cover painting

[Tim_GTi]

I know there's various threads covering this already, I've read them previously and just want a few things clarified.

Has anybody stripped there rocker cover down and painted it themselves and have pictures of the outcome?

I know halfords do a heat resistant paint, I tried it on my heat shield and wasn't too happy with it (it flaked alot and looked off red, bordering pink)

I know foiltec do some, but haven't seen any results, any used this and got pictures to show?

I also know the OEM cover is powder coated, and will cost about £100 to get done. I want to try and avoid this, as I want to save cost. But i don't want to comprimise quality.

I've got some paint stripper ready to strip it down. And if I find a good paint will be stripping the heat shield back down and be painting that with it also.

[tegwin]

£100 to powdercoat the engine cover?.... Try a few other companies.. you should be able to get the cover sand blasted and powder coated for under £50.... My local chap would do something that size for about £35 assuming he had the correct colour on the shelf!

[Tim_GTi]

Really? That's decent, your not far off from me either!

[Polo96CL]

Got loads of foliatec in red left Tim, feel free to come and use it whenever you want. Doesn't flake and looks red (after you've shaken the bottle and realised the red paint is still at the bottom of the tin...shhh)

[Tim_GTi]

Cheers for that Darren. I may well take you up on it. I just want to see some pictures first, as I'm afraid of the finish on the rocker cover. Calipers work well with DIY style thick paint, but I'm not so sure how it will look on the rocker cover.

[alexperkins]

Im nitromorsing mine on sunday/monday so I will report back with the finish!

[Tim_GTi]

Yeh I've got the nitromors ready to use also. What you planning on using to paint it after?

[alexperkins]

Caliper paint i think, though i may try that halfords engine paint

[Polo96CL]

Is it plastic then?

[alexperkins]

lol no its aluminium darren. its the bit thats red atm under the engine cover

[Polo96CL]

Ahh yeah I know my bad I thought you were on about the engine cover! Should be able to paint that pretty easy with the high temp paint, although i'm going to polish mine maybe this weekend

[Tim_GTi]

Yeh shouldn't be hard at all. I've been spraying stuff none stop for the past week or so, so am pretty confident. I'm just worred about the brush finish on the rocker cover. As I've seen it on calipers and can't see it being sufficient for the large cover, including on mine!!

Surely someone's done it before with photographic proof?!

[Polo96CL]

Not sure what the finish is like on them looks matt to me, looks powdercoated in a way. How did they do it originally? Yours looking a bit knackered mate?

Daz

[Tim_GTi]

Originally it's powder coated I believe.

Yeh it's flaking in two spots, kind of annoyed me too as i distinctly remember it being fine when I bought it. Which means if I'd taken good care of the bay throughout my ownership it wouldn't be like that!!

I've only just started paying attention to the engine bay recently though. And it should be looking ALOT better after this weekend

[Mike_M]

I painted mine with halfords high temp paint in silver. I had taken the coil pack and leads off and then masked up everything else that was not to be painted.