[IdahoDoug]

My engine is coming together and I will be cleaning things up significantly and thought it would be nice to properly repaint the valve covers. Anybody know a rattle can paint color that approximates the factory? Mine have a yellowish cast from years of a hot engine so it's hard to tell. Thanks. Same question on the red paint for the letters.

 

[IdahoDoug]

The red stripes seem to have orange-ish tones, and the valve cover silver seems to be darker than silver...

 

[figgie]

the silver is the cast aluminum oxidized possibly anodized that way. I stripped a set down and there was no paint on the valve covers except the stripes.

 

[IdahoDoug]

Hmmm, these definitely have a silver coating. How about does anyone have a good photograph of a newer or low mile 7M engine with the valve covers showing? I could use relative silver color compared to the intake crossing it, etc to use a judgement call.

 

[IdahoDoug]

Hmm, crud. My feeling on original Supras like this is that they are on the cusp of being valued, so I was hoping to have it look stock.

 

[IdahoDoug]

So I just drove over to a buddy's 35k mile Mark III Turbo and his valve covers are a much darker color grey and it's been cared for and stored well, etc. So it seems like an original look valve cover will vary considerably with age based on how different his "original-ish" color looks versus mine, and I'm just going to choose a nice silver that blends with the rest of the aluminum. The red detailing paint for the factory stripes looks like it stood the test of time - looked identical. I thought the weird red was a faded original red but turns out it was quite orange-ey from the beginning.

 

[3p141592654]

Yeah, I always considered it to be orange.

 

[Snipe_sas]

Just for confirmation, but my stripes were orangish too. My covers were what seemed like a painted color of aluminum or other greyish-silver metal, just darker than the underlying surface.

 

[IdahoDoug]

How did you prep yours for the red paint?

 

[Snipe_sas]

I had them blasted with soda ash, instead of glass as I didn't want the possibility of any bits of that stuff ending up going through my internals.