Sandblasting and Zinc Plating of Engine Parts

[clarkster]

Got the car in bits now and was wondering whether it might be good to get some of the visible parts of the bay cleaned up as they are unlikely to come out of the car again for donkeys years.

my inlet for example is in a right state and it will never clean up to a nice standard in the kitchen sink at home no matter how hard i scrub at it, so was thinking about taking it somewhere for blasting and then zinc plating to keep it looking good. ive got the rocker cover, brackets and bolts and allsorts to go with it so was thinking of just taking them all down in one big box.

thing is, take the inlet for example. obviously it needs stripping of any non metal parts and sensors etc but whats the score with fitting all my bolts in afterwards into exposed threads on the inlet that have partially been plated? do these need to be run through with a tap or is the plating so thin it wont make any difference? i know you can spec differing thicknesses of plating but assume the minimum here.

also things like the ports that the injectors push into - any special care needed there or does it make no difference at all?

i dont want a load of parts coming back that i cant fit back together because of the plating.

obviously i can take some advice from the platers but was wondering what you guys would say as there must be a few whove gone down this route.

[Superman]

Plating isn't like a paint or powder finish where there is a great difference in depth, sometimes we have to plate parts at work because powder takes up too much of the tolerance. Its more like anodizing where its a surface change rather than a finish.

Plating alumnium isn't as simple as steel but most places should still be able to do it, however I couldn't be sure of the cost, probably not be cheap as its a batch/mass process usually. To get a good finish it would be best to polish them flat too which in itself is a ball ache.

Zinc and gold/yellow could look quite good but also look abit crap, could help with heat reflection though!

You could just get the cover powder coated, as with a lot of other brackets etc.

Decent tap set should only be £20-30, I got mine from machine mart and use it quite regularly now, cleaning threads out anyway before a re-grease!

[antoni1985]

I got my inlet and rocker cover powder coated and I painted a few other bits in heat paint

[clarkster]

Cheers guys.think ill take some parts to a firm see what
finishes i can expect.yellow gold does sound a bit crap.just
after an as new look tbh nothing fancy.i know zinc might be
yellowy but that wont suit the inlet.