Smoothing & Painting - T/A Differential Cover

[Harley#356]

Pretty easy, but having a little how-to to follow always helps




Step 1: Sand rough texture off with 100 grit, then 220 grit, then 400 grit. Stepping grits down makes it easy to take the roughes stuff off first, then stepping down in grits gets rid of any scratches left from the higher grit. a dremel comes especially in handy for this with the T/A cover getting in the corners and angles

Step 2: On the ridges if you want them polished, continue with sanding from 400 grit down to 800 grit, 1000 grit, then 2000 grit. after this it will look almost polished. Some good abrasive rubbing compound and a buffer wheel on your dremel will make quick finish work for a nice mirror shine. I used Z-PC for the compound, but any abrasive compound should work well

Step 3: Mask off the areas you dont want paint on with 3M blue painters tape and use an exacto or utility razor blade knife to trim the tape. i also taped the back flange so no paint would drip down on the edge and get in the way of the gasket seating fully.

Step 4: Use a high build high temp primer to fill the low spots in the casting. I used Duplicolor engine primer and did 3-4 coats. after that wet sand the cover with 600-800 grits to smooth out the finish. This pic is jus after the 1st coat, but after you do 3 coats and wetsand the finish will smooth out a lot



Step 5: 3 coats of Duplicolor black engine paint



Step 6: Used Testors modeling enamel to paint the letters sonic blue. dont worry about getting paint over the grooves. its nearly impossible with the logo being barely engraved in the surface. just hit it with 2000 grit after the lettering paint and repolish and it'll leave the paint just in the letters and look perfect.

Step 7: Prep for clear coat. Mask over the bolts and plugs, and a good tip for keeping the paint out of the bolt holes for the mounting bolts is just get some paper towel and wad it up and stick it in the holes. works excellent.



Step 8: Clear coat with 3 coats of duplicolor engine clear. Unmask, you're all finished!



I'll have to get some better pics when we install it. that last one came out a bit dark and grainy.

One other tip, get rid of the ugly black drain/fill plugs and pick up some SS plugs

Now get out there and mod your mods! lol

[Fuzion]

That looks good! You make me want to almost paint mine, if we even put it on. Not to sure if it will fit with the Lightning rear sway bar.

[Harley#356]

i'm pretty sure it will. i havent seen anybody on NLOC say about it not fitting

[Harley#356]

an updated pic of the cover so the lettering shows a bit better, but the orange peel is for some reason magnified in this shot haha i cant win getting a good pic of how it looks in person!

not that you can even see my rear end cover with the truck on the ground wiht a 4.5" rear drop lol but still! i could have spent a bit more time with wetsanding and a few more coats of high build primer but really wasnt worth the time since under the truck in the shadows you'll never notice it anyway. now the blower...thats a whole different story. i got that sucker smoother than glass! i'll do a how-to for that one later