I painted the bare aluminum valve covers on my Mach 1. It was annoying with everything looking new and clean, then you see those ugly things messing up the look. I took about a week to get to this point putting in a few hours after work everyday. Learn how I got them out at the bottom. The pictures are way too large to directly post so goto http://home.comcast.net/~larrendeuce/Mustang%20Mach%201.htm to see them full size. I used 3 coats self etching primer, 2 coats color, and 2 coats clear. The Valve covers are Ford Dark Shadow Grey (CX), and the Coil covers black. I plan on putting them on this weekend and taking some more shots of everything assembled. I haven't been able to find much useful information on removing the valve covers in online fourms, manuals, or even with my friends access to the ford tech website. I needed to remove the shaker, disconnect the fuel line over the passenger side cover, and I bent the ac lines out of the way. The throttle body needed to come off, and the air intake box, hoses, etc. It was a tight fit but it comes out. On the drivers side the powersteering reservoir and bracket were unbolted and moved aside. The hydro-boost unit is a real pain. 1 bolt on the firewall, 4 under the dash(3 on the booster 1 on the pedal bracket. After the pedals were unbolted the clutch cable came off the stock plastic quadrant and then unbolted from the firewall. The hydro-boost needs to come out of the firewall, 2 bolts holding the master cylinder to it and it will pull twards the front of the car at about a 15* angle. I was able to move the master cylinder enough that I didn't need to disconnect the brake lines. After all that, the drivers cover comes out.
Assembled Pics, goto http://home.comcast.net/~larrendeuce/Mustang%20Mach%201.htm for full size, very large pics, some desktop quality.
You've got a nice black theme going on in your engine bay. I like it. Good job on doing it yourself. I got the Ford Racing Blue valve covers and had the Ford Dealer put them on.
I am trying to figure out if I should paint the timing cover. I was thinking ford blue to look like the old mach 1 engines. Then again it might look out of place. I need to do something with that optima battery also.
