Been meaning to do this...powder coated my valve covers

[racer2086]

My driver's side cover was literally crumbing to pieces. One of the screw holes for the plastic cover disintegrated, and one of the studs for the coils fell off. The metal was literally powder-izing ever time I touched it.

So I bought a new set for a steal on ebay. Dropped them off originally intending on doing wrinkle black. After looking at the textures and the multitude of colors, I decided to just go OEM look and matched something very close to the OEM paint color.

So off they went to get washed, blasted and coated.

Of course, I get a phone call the next day that says one of them is cracked. The guy says he welded it from the inside and it shouldn't leak. Ok, then.

Got em back. Not perfect, since no used cover is going to be free of surface imperfections, but boy am I happy with how they look. No more flaking paint!

And here are some pictures!





Here's the weld. The metal on these covers sucks. The weld was kinda porous looking towards the gasket surface. I put a coating of JB weld over the porosities and in the gasket channel where the crack could be seen. Kinda ghetto for my tastes, but the crack is on the top of the valve cover, so at least gravity is on my side and oil won't pool there.




Old cover:





New gaskets in place:



Driver's side together:





Time for the passenger side:







I'm glad I didn't go with the wrinkle. The factory color pops in the engine bay. I had painted my old passenger side cover wrinkle black. It just seemed so drab. The wrinkle wasn't all that significant either. What do you all think? Boring going with OEM color? I kinda like it...








On a side note, powdercoating rocks. The surface is so tough. The old cover I had painted two months before was already flaking off everywhere. The paint didn't last AT ALL. And I cleaned the heck out of them and primed them. Oh well.

[psjr]

Looks nice.
The factory color is silver. It turns gold from heat and sometimes from oil getting cooked on it.

[GSXRliterbikz]

Nice. I've had a few sets done over the years. Last set I had was a blue set.
Just curious, what did it cost you,?
I have someone near me that does it, but he charges 175 a set. But he does a really nice job cleaning them up before coating them.

[cyclops2]

Looks very nice good work.

I had mine power coated blue. Will be installing them in a few weeks. Also had front coil springs, all calipers and fuel rail done.

[rahee006]

i got my intakes painted, valve covers on the m73, gets pretty hot to hold any kind of paint in my opinion.

did you paint them gold, or is it the light?

[victoriabmw27]

Looks good! Always a great way to spruce up under the hood appearance.

[haynes740]

Looks nice glad it turned out so nice. Shame how much new covers cost these days.

Sent from my iPad using BF.com

[racer2086]

Thanks everyone

Looks nice.
The factory color is silver. It turns gold from heat and sometimes from oil getting cooked on it.

Well damn, I wish I knew that . Need Darth to post up a pic lol.

You are an expert on these cars, but you sure about that? The covers I got and what was left on mine were really gold-ish. That would be some massive colorshifting of that paint... Even when this car was new, I remember wondering why they painted them gold-ish...unless the color had changed already.

Nice. I've had a few sets done over the years. Last set I had was a blue set.
Just curious, what did it cost you,?
I have someone near me that does it, but he charges 175 a set. But he does a really nice job cleaning them up before coating them.

It was $50 a cover. Couldn't pass it up for that. Everywhere I talked to wanted $150-200. That included cleaning and blasting and the guy ordered the color. He charged me a little more for welding it. Worth it for the hassle it saved me returning them on ebay.

i got my intakes painted, valve covers on the m73, gets pretty hot to hold any kind of paint in my opinion.

did you paint them gold, or is it the light?

They are a gold-ish metallic color. Not gold, gold. That color was there also. The light definitely makes it look gold. I just matched it to what was on there before.

[psjr]

Here's a Darth pic:

[TxDarth]

Here's a Darth pic:

That was about 8 years ago...here was last summer after changing to Evans...

[psjr]

Looks like even Darth is starting to turn gold

[Sobek]

Nice work Racer! I have to get new valve covers too since mine have the same problems yours did - missing plastic cover thread and one or two of my coil nut mounts have EXPLODED. It's like someone put some serious amps through them and blew them up, it's bizarre. I actually found one of the (huge) chunks of exploded coil nut mounts in my oil pan... so some idiot destroyed it somehow, then let it fall into the engine and by some miracle it made it into the pan without chewing anything to pieces, and got lodged in my oil pickup screen. Scary stuff!

This is how mine sit now, they were painted silver at some point, which I really like the look of;

[xboss]

Looks like a duracell battery!

[Hartge 635]

I like it

[racer2086]

Lol. I can't believe they actually were silver at some point. Bmw choose literally the worst paint possible for that. Changes color and peels like crazy. AND they painted the inside!! Stupid.

Anyway, I like the gold. I would have probably more strongly considered the silver knowing that was the original color, but thats just the color of the bare metal anyway. Black looked boring when I painted the pass side before. If my car was something other than black, I would have just painted it that! That would have been cool.

It does look like a Duracell battery! The power plant that keeps my car rolling!

[NordmanMg]

Looks very nice good work.

I had mine power coated blue. Will be installing them in a few weeks. Also had front coil springs, all calipers and fuel rail done.

Its a nice color, I got mine done lil wile ago

[racer2086]

Cool. Lookin good

[roys740]

Think I will be doing this very soon as spring approaches.

[HDIDDY]

The shop I use down here claim that due to the temperatures used for powder coating they coudnt do my valve covers. Something about the covers being two separate metals and the seams blowing out.

[Sobek]

Pretty sure they're just cast magnesium? Later model BMW's might use a different setup, I think some are aluminium? Hmm

[GSXRliterbikz]

Pretty sure they're just cast magnesium? Later model BMW's might use a different setup, I think some are aluminium? Hmm

Nope. They are all a magnesium compound afaik

[nmlss2006]

They are. That's why 'the metal sucks' and why welding it.. well, good luck.

I had one of the cars powdercoated too. Not happy with how it came out, the guy at the shop was actually happy 'they came out so well'.

Paid $150 for two in NJ.

[cyclops2]

Its a nice color, I got mine done lil wile ago

Sweet! I do like that blue. I also did some work to the engine acoustical cover. Actually, my Nephew #1's friend painted the sides silver and the stripes blue. Not as tight as yours, but looks OK. VC's hadn't been done yet and engine is now apart doing valley pan etc.

[NordmanMg]

Sweet! I do like that blue. I also did some work to the engine acoustical cover. Actually, my Nephew #1's friend painted the sides silver and the stripes blue. Not as tight as yours, but looks OK. VC's hadn't been done yet and engine is now apart doing valley pan etc.

If you gonna have time, paint VC's and front upper timing covers too))
I think that if VC color is any other then silver - logo and laters have to be silver
other way is look to much coloring
i did mine like that