Posting this here because I think it gets the most traffic. Rather long, but detailed.

With the engine completion just a few weeks away (and knowing that the motor will be sitting for a few months-no rockers, pushrods) I decided to dig out my old intake and valve covers, clean them up, and use as "protection" for the time being.

A post of about a week ago covered a few ideas to clean up the intake, which I was determined to do as I just could not bring myself to bolt dirty old stuff on the new motor.

I bought what was suggested, brake clean, an inexpensive suction feed blaster, respirator, and half a dozen boxes of baking soda.

Despite the fact that I had packaged all of the removed parts in boxes, sealed them in plastic and covered all of it with a doubled wrapped tarp in a "dry" covered area, I got a nasty surprise when I went to go dig them out. Seems that with all the heavy rains we have recently gotten, my attempts to keep them dry and safe worked for all but this one box. :( It was a soggy mushy mess.

Here's the valve covers:

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x141/fppb1/IMG_1582.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x141/fppb1/IMG_1581.jpg

Never took a before pic of the intake as I was too "p***ed", just got to work. The intake had 30+ years of grime, brownish tarnish, etc. on top of the puss-like white corrosion, yuk!

I finished the intake yesterday. Here's what I did:

Wash up the intake with wheel cleaner, brush, and kitchen detergent.
Allowed to dry
Degreased with brake clean (Made determination that the oil, grease, and grime actually helped protect it some as a bunch just floated off with this "junk") Allowed to dry again.
Soda blasted the intake. Did a darn fine job, but it left many areas of dark tarnish discoloration. Also not real happy with the "snowy white sliver look" similar to what you get when bead blasting.
Read the Edelbrock site info on cleaning. The recommended product is a liquid rust converter. (Hey, I got a gal of the on the shelf! Woo-Hoo!)

The area between the carb mount and the water outlet had a ton of corrosion. It's "valley-ed" so I poured a few oz.'s of the fluid in and let it sit for about an hour. When I returned, crap no change. So I grabbed a small stainless steel wire brush (about the size of a large toothbrush) and gave it a few whisks.

Holy cow, the corrosion began lifting off and washing away. It looked like wisps of smoke. So I kept doing that with a light pressure until it stopped and left it overnight. Next morning I dumped it out and it was almost completely gone, so I set up a plastic storage box that fit the intake, got out my "rust dissolve aquarium pump" poured in the liquid and started washing down the corroded areas. After an hour of sitting and re-wetting, I used the brush to loosen the corrosion, re-wet and began the process again.

Added benefit of the wire brush was that it brought back the metal "gleam" similar to "out-of-the-box-new". So I am also thinking that if you bead blast the manifold and don't like the snowy-white-silver look, use the brush and some of this liquid??

Here's what it looks like now:

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x141/fppb1/IMG_1583.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x141/fppb1/IMG_1584.jpg

I am going to blast the covers and repeat the process. I will post the results when done...good or bad.




P.S- tried to use the photobucket "thumbnail" link but I could not get it to work "managing attachments" or inserting into this post. Could someone PM me with instructions?

Looks good :thumbsup:

I will be very interested to see what you do and how it comes out on those valvecovers... I have a set just like them but without quite that much corrosion and a lot more paint.

The intake came out great. Was it as bad as the valve covers? There looks to be quite a bit of pitting on the covers. I wish you luck with those. I wonder if it would help to cover the parts with an oil, then bag them for storage to prevent that kind of damage. I have never done it but it sounds like it might work. Maybe someone has done that before and let us know. Good luck with the covers.

The intake came out great. Was it as bad as the valve covers?

Not quite as bad, but baaaaaaad. The valve covers were fins down and the intake on top. Not sure if I can save the VC's.

Still not perfect, but close enough for a "cap".

Try some CLR on that intake. Your wife probley uses it to clean kettle. Calcium lime rust remover. It will look new. Hardware even grocers.

Well, I got back to work on the VC's today. Long trip to Lowe's buying all the stuff I thought I would need.

CLR did bub-kiss. $4.36 wasted.

Found a great post on another site which I will add later (w/ photos). It discussed the need to remove ALL of the corrosion, pits, etc with aggressive sanding.

I tried sanding. BS, it took the emergence of "Big Bertha" (the flap-wheel body grinder) to get rid of some of the corrosion pits. Surprisingly, 80 grit took down her grind marks away rather quickly. Now its off to the vanes and smoothing things down with successively finer grit sandpaper.

Glad I wore a respirator. Metal stuff all over the place...none in me! :thumbsup:

Pics tomorrow. I expect to finish tomorrow too...all polished up too! Too early to tell if/how it will finish up.

Thanks for stopping by! :thumbsup:

...With the engine completion just a few weeks away (and knowing that the motor will be sitting for a few months-no rockers, pushrods) I decided to dig out my old intake and valve covers, clean them up, and use as "protection" for the time being.
...
You dug them out, how deep did you have them buried? They look pretty nasty. :)

You dug them out, how deep did you have them buried? They look pretty nasty. :)

Storage box leaked. Got the valve covers, intake, starter, and dist.

But, hey, the Felx Fan is still perfect! :D

Here's the link to the polishing articles:

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=97179

Well CLR works on my junk. Sprayed on with old windex bottle scrubed lightly with wifes tooth brush. Maybe let sit longer. The kettle sits over night.

... scrubed lightly with wifes tooth brush.

My Wife uses mine to do the toilet. l:)

But she rinses it before she gives it back. :D

CLR probably would have done more if I left it on longer, but I used my past experience of de-liming shower heads as guide. 1/2 hour and they were spotless.

I just think the "damage" was just too much on the VC's to have the impact I was hoping for.

On the intake use the CLR. Them valve covers I would have just worked overtime and put money back into economy.

Well, I'm done. Not perfect but considering where I started, freakin amazing :thumbsup:

One sanded, one not

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x141/fppb1/IMG_1585.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x141/fppb1/IMG_1586.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x141/fppb1/IMG_1587.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x141/fppb1/IMG_1588.jpg

One polished

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x141/fppb1/IMG_1589.jpg

Both polished

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x141/fppb1/IMG_1593.jpg

Once the motor is properly equipped with a set of tall VC's, I may revisit and wall mount 'em.

Good lesson not to wrap stuff up in plastic.

Good lesson not to wrap stuff up in plastic.

that leaks. Plastic wrapping that does not leak is fine. I wasn't expecting a small flood.

I would have hung them up on the garage wall instead of putting them in a plastic bag in the first place until you were ready to polish them up and use them.

Wow, those came out 1000% better than I thought they would. Very nice job.

that leaks. Plastic wrapping that does not leak is fine. I wasn't expecting a small flood.

BUT plastic wrapping that doesn't leak CAN condense humidity inside.

My son learned the had way on his original bare CI hood and had to buy a new reproduction hood.

You sure did a nice job of cleaning them up :hurray:

From the original pictures, I never would have guessed they would have came out as good as they did :thumbsup:

They look very good considering where you started from.


Rocky

Clean and polish them again, then clear coat, that will keep them looking pretty.