dsmyth

With my engine out for a thorough reseal I have been looking at my tired looking timing covers. They were partially sprayed in the factory with cosmoline and it has baked on and mixed with whatever paint they used on the covers. The products I use sucessfully to remove cosmoline with do not remove even a trace of it from the covers. They were ugly.
My next step was to glass bead them. They appear to be made of either aluminum or magnesium. Not bakelite as has been suggested. The glass bead worked well but left them a light grey colour.
One interesting finding was that in the seal grove there were several spots where casting flaws left a pitted surface. I remember seeing this on a previous 964 I owned and thought it might be an isolated defect. This may be the resaon for oil sepage that is commonly seen when the rubber seals get old.
My solution was a very thin strip of RTV sealer in the bottom of the gasket surface. Not enough to squish out but enough to make up for any surface irregularities in the seal groove. Some may argue this tactic.
I managed to find a high heat engine paint that I thought was close to the original factory paint. It has that grey colour with a touch of green/ brown. I used the old rubber gromets to protect the clean surface from paint.
I am happy with the clean up. Here are a few pictures.

dsmyth

The camera flash made the colour look much brighter than it is . I used Dupli coat , cast coat iron colour engine paint. Several other possibilities but I preferred this.

AOW162435

Doug,
Beautiful! Before I read your second post, I assumed that was the color you used.

I used the same color to breathe some life into my new RS engine mounts a few years back, and also on my fan shroud when I replaced the alternator.

Furthermore, I recently installed a set of 231mm Tundra brakes on my '01 4Runner. Bead blasted the calipers, sprayed with high-temp Duplicolor primer, and then Cast Coat Iron.













Andreas

ja78911sc

My covers had silicone on them and they leaked. I removed the silicone and resealed the covers dry with the OE gasket. Now they are dry.

This is my experience. You will get different opinions on both methods.

NP993

My feeling on what color to paint the chain covers is that the only time you see the chain covers is when the motor is out of the car, and that's pretty much never, so who cares.

(Pardon the snark, to each his own, etc etc)

993MAN

Nice handy work. The cover look great!

FisterD

Doug, that looks perfect! Nice job.

Stealth 993

Same color I used as well

mike cap

Doug,

That looks great. I would have done the same thing.

Cactus

Nice work. Love the nice clean engine.

geolab

Mine are Bakelite, and when you sand blast them, the glass powder in them glitters. You can see the glass weave clearly in them as in picture number 1 in this post.

deekay911

Hmm...really doesn't look like bakelite to me at all?

kjr914

Doug, Great job. You are joining a short, elite list of people that I simultaneously admire and hate for their cleaning capabilities! Only "hate" since it makes my engine look inferior and makes me want to spend my entire weekend cleaning! ...and I hate cleaning...

Geo,
I'm not sure, but that first picture looks like the light is coming thru a screen, thus putting a pattern on the cover. Look at the glove, which has a pattern on it. Personally, I don't know what they are, but I'd like mine to look like Dougs!