man.. i wish I woulda known this?!

I just painted my valve cover and it looks beautiful!

but i gotta get that tarnish off inside.. and if i dip it.. there goes all my paint!!

Poo!

Well, since I'm not in California, those cancer warnings don't apply...

after living in the wonderful, clean, and protected Ohio environment all these years you probably already have cancer.

anyone think I can use Aircraft Stripper on just the inside of the valve cover??

I wouldn't worry about it proxlamus unless you have some obsessive compulsive fixation on keeping your out of sight engine parts sparking clean.

..

i just don't want any bit of hardened oil breaking off and falling into my engine.. damaging it..

better safe than sorry

Well if it is all over the inside of your valve cover, wouldn't it make sense that a similar layer was all over lots of other places in your engine that you DON'T see without a complete teardown?

As seen in this thread, that stuff is plastered on pretty good. I think the odds of it just flaking off of its own volition are pretty small.

The only thing that I remember being on the underside of the valve cover that you would want to remove is that hard putty sealant that they put on the splash guard for the vent hole. That stuff IS hard, and after 30 years is bound to be cracked and ready to disintegrate into little shards of hard gunk. Probably not hard enough to damage a valve or a lifter, but I'll bet they cold play havoc on a small oil passage down below.

Enrique

Ok.. well I decided to just splash in some AirCraft stripper and a toothbrush...

after about 5 minutes.. Look at my new valve cover!

I also painted it!!

Anyone like it!!

Hopefully you got ALL of the stripper out of the Valve Cover (including any that seeped under the metal plate covering the back 1/2 of the cover) cause it is extremely caustic stuff and would EAT any seals it comes in contact with in a heartbeat.

what type of paint did you use on your cam cover? it seems to have a wrinkle, orange peel finish to it like the turbo covers do. looks good though.

what is "aircraft stripper"?

aircraft stripper is a really powerful chemical available at your local auto store, or Wal-Mart, which basically strips anything and everything off of metal...

used for removing paint from cars and stuff.

But be very careful! it ate through 2 layers of rubber gloves, and disintigrated a plastic brush I had...

very strong stuff... but does miracles!

I used Dupli-Color Textured Metallic coating.. also available at nearly all auto stores