W124 300te Rocker Cover

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brucemillar

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I had my 300te rocker cover media blasted and painted to match the bodywork. Very happy with that (at the time). The cover is made from Magnesium Alloy so when all cleaned up from the rubbery plastic coating that Mercedes use at the factory, it is very pitted.

I primed it with an etch primer and painted it. Now (being really picky) I am thinking I want to to take it back off and fill the pitting with body filler, sand and paint again. The aim being to get a nice clean finish.

Q. Will this work with the heat in the engine bay/engine, or will the filler pop out with any trapped air pockets expanding in the heat?
 
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Bruce it will be trial and error ,the paint is heat resistant as you know .A body shop will spray it with filler primer for you , or do it yourself with a rattle can .This part gets all the heat as it rises up to the top of the engine. I would talk to a body shop and see what they think .And they do have the means to bake it on .
 
Were it me I might be tempted to have the cover powder coated (assuming the heat wont be an issue) to get the best paint finish possible and accept the pitting as age related patina.

How about a red or yellow finish or is that too 'in your face' or contemporary for the look you're after?

That sure is one clean and tidy engine bay though, credit to your efforts.
 
David404 said:
Were it me I might be tempted to have the cover powder coated (assuming the heat wont be an issue) to get the best paint finish possible and accept the pitting as age related patina. How about a red or yellow finish or is that too 'in your face' or contemporary for the look you're after? That sure is one clean and tidy engine bay though, credit to your efforts.

David

Coating would be ideal, but I'm not sure I can get the bodywork colour, which would rule this out.

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You could use something like chemical metal instead of regular body filler if you're paranoid about the higher temps it'll see causing the normal filler to fall out/fail from constant temp cycling

In theory getting it welded would be even better but IME welding old mag castings usually involves chasing porosity that's almost impossible to completely eliminate i.e. fresh surface pores are constantly appearing at the edges of the weld. Magnesium filler wire is also 'kin spendy, even compared to stuff like Belzona or Devcon epoxy puttys which are in a different league to stuff like jb weld

If the two pack you shot it with is staying well stuck i'd stay with that personally... nearly always looks nicer than powder coating IMO but if you decide to go with powder coating make sure whoever's doing the work has experience with mag/knows the rocker cover is magnesium and speak to them before filling because of the temps involved (they might even suggest something like chemical metal)
 
I'd buy a spare one to experiment with rather than undoing your handiwork on the existing cover.

You could etch prime and use powder coat for the primer, then flat down to paint with body colour if you're really keen?
 
Hi their theirs a company in south east London called purpose powder coating and they will do any colour you like. Owner Peter very nice chap and work is excellent all the best
 
I have read all your very helpful replies and liked the idea of buying an old cover to experiment on. But after lots of thought I have come to the conclusion I should just leave well alone.

It's me who is bothered by the pitting and the knowledge that when I painted the cover I knew it was there, and elected to leave it as it was. You can't unknow what you know!
 
Bruce,
I have a cover here on the M103 I have no use for. Yours for the cost of postage if you want one to experiment with.
 
Bruce i have found a very good paint mixing company on Ebay .My car is diamond blue .And after removing the old drivers wing my idea was to repair it with new metal .
The company i contacted on ebay first sent the colour to the code and it was nothing like my blue .Si i asked if i could send them a piece of the old wing to help them to match it up .This is what i did . So as soon as the rattle can came i did a little spraying job with it , and i used the existing part of the old wing that i sent to start with .Well its so good a match ,and without the masking tape across the centre part you are unable to see the part where the paints has been sprayed on.
 
Just use high build primer and sand back until u get the finish you're looking for
Well that's if the pits aren't too deep
 
Wayne

The pits are fairly deep. It really would want filling then primer then flatting back. But. I have decided to leave it for now. It could end up being one of these jobs where instead of walking away you have to do that final little touch that ruins the whole job.

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