Refinishing valve covers?

obaa996

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It looks like I'm going to need to get my valve covers refinished; the red finish has flaked off in large sections, due to probably overzealous cleaning. I searched through the archives, and saw that the original paint is not available. There were some threads about powdercoating, but it looks like powdercoating does not stick very well due to the covers being magnesium. I'm curious if there is anything special or different about the alloy used that's causing the problems? I've had several sets of magnesium wheels powdercoated, and never had any issues, so just wondering why the covers would pose special problems...

Thanks!
 

Tiepilot

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Powdercoating works fine, it's finding a shop that knows what they are doing. Most shops sandblast the parts for coating and that can't be done with magnesium. The VC's must be chemically stripped and then coated.

Engine paint also works as many have color changed their VC's.
 
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