Engine bay paint

So since I've got a week to kill 'til my new job starts, and I'm trying not to spend a whole lot of $$$ until that happens, I decided to do a little paint work under the hood.




I might do the engine cover over because I'm not terribly happy how the semi-gloss looks, and there's several blemishes I'm not proud of.

My aluminum valve covers had some chinks in them that I don't think would polish out, so I'm doing the front valve cover in wrinkle black with red stripes filling in the grooves. The rear got the same semi-gloss engine paint the cover got before I installed it last week.

I wanted to throw it out there to you guys as to what color to paint the blower. I originally wanted to do it in black, with red highlights on the ribs, but I'm kind of thinking that the red I did the lettering with would look pretty sharp on there too, making a nice contrast. What do you guys think?

Looks really good so far, which can't be said for most 3800 engine paint jobs I've seen.

I would go with black for the blower. The way they designed it, I'm sure the idea was to integrate the cover into the blower's heat sink design, to make the unit seem more massive. When you create contrast between the cover and blower, you are calling out the cover as a separate piece, which makes the blower seem smaller, and the cover - well, it really isn't serving much purpose any more.

If you paint the mini cover and snout black as well, I think that would look pretty sweet. The way you've saved the red as an accent, that's top notch, something like the designers would have done from the factory (like they did with Pontiac GTP). The less red you use, the better it will look.

But that's me - I like a believable factory look. Some people like to airbrush flaming skulls on their engine cover!

Here it is in RED...BUT, I must say I like the black better.

Nice! I like the red too. I actually thought about doing red with black letters instead, but once I realized I couldn't polish my valve cover, I decided to go black and red instead of red and polished. Yours is sharp though!

Nice job! I would have screwed up the red lettering for sure.
I did my valve covers gloss black with red stripes. Didnt come out perfect but you get the idea. Also have that oil cap for sale if you are interested (though you dont have an L67 RPO)


One way to kill time before the new job starts is to clay&wax the car. I literally spent 2 full days detailing the paint when i first got my riv. Not sure what condition your paint is in though. Take time to do it right.

AA-that's the look I like too. I like people to wonder whether it was factory or not. I'm a big fan of subtle. So I agree that it will be more to the design of the cover to go black with the supercharger.

Mr Riv, trust me, the red lettering got done more than once, along with a little black touch-up around the edges. Apparently I had too much coffee before I tried it!

How did you do the stripes? I was just planning on brushing them in but I'm kinda thinking it might be worth taping them off and spraying them with the engine enamel.

If my paint was worth keeping, I'd probably be doing that. But the clear is starting to bubble like it did on a 93 Seville I had, and I actually have primer exposed in a couple of small spots on the deck lid. I've seen a couple other Rivieras around here with some primer showing, so I'm guessing this car falls right into the era of bad GM paint. So I see a paint job down the road a little ways for me...

Not sure how Mr.Riviera did it, but one way to do stripes on the valve covers would be to use a 2 step process. First paint the entire outside of the cover black. Let fully dry. Next spray or brush the red in the recesses, then use a clean, solvent-soaked rag to remove the excess paint, leaving the red paint only in the recessed grooves.

AA wrote:

Not sure how Mr.Riviera did it, but one way to do stripes on the valve covers would be to use a 2 step process. First paint the entire outside of the cover black. Let fully dry. Next spray or brush the red in the recesses, then use a clean, solvent-soaked rag to remove the excess paint, leaving the red paint only in the recessed grooves.

Do you think that'd work with wrinkle finish? I was worried doing it that way might leave a red residue in the black.

It might still work. Try a sample first?

That is pretty much how i did it. Sprayed black engine paint, then taped it all off except for valleys, then hit it with red caliper paint. I should have let it dry overnight and dont a better job of taping, but after 3+ years its still holding up well.

Still got that cap for sale?

rivparadise wrote:

Still got that cap for sale?

Sorry it sold.

not sure about paint but anyone ever polish the complete S/C and TB??

Black S/C

Here's where I've gotten the valve cover to. I can't get the red and wrinkle to be happy with each other. After the third attempt, it's getting too thick to do anything with. I'm going to have to blast it and start over.

Top part looks awesome. Congrats. The stripes were worth a try, but I think it will look just as good if you blast them clean and then just one good coat of wrinkle black. Find an oil fill cap like Mr.Riviera posted above, with red "L67" and it will look great with your cover!

Kevin, the top part looks great in the pic. I agree with Aaron, paint your valve cover solid black and try to affix something like this to your oil cap: http://www.ebay.com/itm/250938143300?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

Here's the finished product:




I found some of the fineline masking tape that was the same width as the valleys, and just took my time masking it off. The wrinkle finish didn't quite come out exactly like I wanted, but I can live with it. Nex step is to do something with the ouil fill cap. I think I'm going to do something with a Buick emblem.

that looks really nice.

It looks pretty good to me. the oil fill idea sounds cool to