First off I've been chasing an oil leak for a good, well, forever now. Finally gave up on the chrome valve cover and decided to do something different with the stocker.

Here's a pic of it after putting on crinkle paint.



Looks neat by itself but kind of out of place in the engine bay. The bright side is that the oil leak is completely gone now.

...so how can I make this look better?

I went to a swap meet yesterday and saw a Chevrolet script from an Impalla that got me thinking. It was rough but I knew I could get a new one for cheap on Flea-bay.



Looks kind of cool. So I'm going to take a piece of paper, outline it, punch the holes in it, and use the paper as a template to drill the mounting holes into the top of the valve cover to mount this on the flat spot.

That'll take care of the boring valve cover. Little less chrome than the all-chrome cover but enough bling to make it stand out.

Next thing was the air cleaner. I've never liked the one I have now. It's small, cheap and cuts the crap out of my hands every time I work on the car.

So...



It's about 1" shorter than the air cleaner I have now. It's the same width but a good 4" longer so it should cover up the carb linkage a bit and add some old school style.

I'll try it as-is but I have a feeling I'll be rolling out the masking tape and crinkle-paint again. I'll probably get some 1/4" wide edge tape and just keep the lines uncovered.

Then I'll flat-black the booster, straighten up my plug wires, and see what else I can do to modernize with classic style.

I'll post pics as I do things in this thread.

Subbed and looking forward to watching this!

Stuff has started shipping...

Also ordered new KYB shocks for the front. Old ones are shot and it's rubbing a bit under compression. Probably going to have to get springs too but I told the wife I'd do it in stages until the rubbing stopped.

I'm not looking forward to taking the valve cover off again after just getting it to seal. That said I have plenty of RTV...

In the middle of the project but had to share this. I'm Reay liking how this is going...

..and done!



....now for my new air cleaner. Should be delivered tomorrow.

Nice!!!! Now ya need some aluminum side covers! lol

Neat mod. Yeah, I was wondering why you didn't use the crinkle finish on the side covers too?

I saw a SpikeTV Powerblock episode years back where they rebuilt a Ford inline, and went the budget route with crinkle finish valve cover and side covers. But they painted their engine heat friendly black, so they painted Ford blue over the the crinkle finish to get a custom color out of it. Looked nice.

I just like the side overs subdued. It'd be too busy if they were black.

Air cleaner is in! Had to trim the bolt but other than that easy enough.





Wife says no crinkle paint so it stays as-is.

Much better!