Firstly, materials...
Ultrafine sandpaper OR those yellow-green scouring pad / sponge
things (recommended).
"Sea Blue Candy" by Tetrosyl.
"Clear Lacquer" by Tetrosyl.
"Metal Flake" by Plasti-kote.
And something to paint your letters with, alternatively (and this
is VERY hard to do) - use masking
tape to mask all the letters off. Personally I wouldn't bother unless
you have a lot of patience!
I tried it, and just ended up repainting the whole lot I used Citadel
Plastic paints
(from Games Workshop) but any Enamel will do the job as well, if
not better:
Firstly give it all a damn good clean with washing up liquid, either
in your sink or a washing up bowl.
Next, rinse it all off with clean water, and either towel dry it
off and leave it to dry out, or place it
on some kitchen roll and leave it for longer!
After it is all totally dry, using your scouring pad (I found this
best to use - not too harsh, but "keys"
the service nicely) and rub the cover all over, it will go a greyish
white - don't worry! this is normal
Now, using a damp cloth or kitchen roll, give it all a wipe over
making sure it's all clean and dust free.
Now it's decision time... Do you want to paint the letters back
in yourself, or do you want to keep
them like Mitsubishi intended?
Lets face it, if you're repainting your cover, the letters are going
to look old and shabby compared to
the rest of it!
So, you can either spray them, cover them with masking tape (the
annoying hard way..) or, use
vaseline and gently scrape the paint/vaseline mixture off afterwards
- Thanks to Mr.Bishi for that one
A word of warning tho, vaseline is petroleum based, highly greasy,
and if you get it anywhere other
then on the letters, good luck trying to get it off! WD40 has the
same affect on paint, so if you've used
any recently near your Mivec cover, give it a VERY good wash!
Right then, now that's all done, you're ready to start spraying!
Don't worry the above won't take
very long, even less if you respray the lot, the next bit is the
fun bit I'll leave it up to you to take your
own safety precautions using spray paints! Wearing old clothes is
a good idea too.
I sprayed the back first, just to test the plastic's reaction to
the paint, and it was all OK.
Once this is dry you can begin working on the front, or give the
back another coat or two (or three!)
depending on the colour you are using.
Once this is dry, I turned the cover over wearing surgical gloves,
preventing grease, oil, etc. getting
on the cover.
Spray it as directed on the can, not too close as it has a lot of
bumps and curves - perfect for heavy
paint to run!
Give it as many coats (when dry) as needed. You might want to use
some ultrafine sandpaper to
key the surface a little between coats, personal preference I feel.
Once finished, and all dry, I then
used the "Metal Flake" clear lacquer to coat it, giving
it a fairly shiny appearance, I think the more
coats of this = more shinygoodness! It's not metalflake like you
get on some paintwork, but it is nice!
At this point I painted all the letters back on using my plastic
paints (enamel is fine also, see above)
and then lacquered the whole lot again.
Once this was all dry, I then fully lacquered it two or three times
with the clear lacquer, giving it a
proper (and fairly hard) shell protecting it. I've had it like this
for about a month and a half, and it has
been perfect since! No cracks, no paint lifting, nothing. The Mivec
cover gets warm, but never hot
enough to damage the paint. (And that was tested after a 50 mile
run to work pulling 120mph most
of the way! )
You can also do your oil cap in the same way, just follow this
guide. It isn't hard to do, just make
sure you mask up the underneath, and remove the screw and plate
it holds. IMPORTANT! DO NOT
get any paint on the seal surface, as this could damage it! You'll
also find it a lot easier to paint the
OIL and can picture back on with a tiny brush, or using a stronger
sandpaper you should be able to
take it all off and just have a flat oil cap.
Thanks again to Red Duke for this guide. |
