Well today my intake manifold gaskets arrived from the very reliable fordprobestore.co.uk. Just a pity about the rain! So because our garage is totally full of crap I had to think of another plan- the gazebo!
haha the ridiculous looks I was getting for my wee driveway showstand!
So I got it all back together (inspired my dad to purchase a torque wrench for £30 which is damn sweet). And it looked like this:
Bit pissed you can hardly see any of my lovely rear cam cover! Then did the fuel line short on the diagnostics box, turned key for 10 secs, disconnect the jumper wire and bingo... started first time
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
What a relief!
So it's running sweet for now! All back together, new sparks, new IM and cam cover gaskets, and a polished and grinded down throttle body.
Anyway about the painting here's how I did it:
0. Purchase new gaskets and Very High Temperature spraypaint.
1. Remove Valve cover, disconnect hoses then bolts etc.
2. Use some kind of oil separator to clean it, I also used a J cloth and toothbrush to remove all the grime.
3. Sand down metal to give the paint a good key to stick to (I used 60 then 180 grit- also noticed fabric backed in stead of paper worked better)
4. Clean with white spirit or maybe petrol or something
5. Mask off spark plug holes, vacuum lines etc
6. Spraypaint several layers 10 minutes apart - don't go to heavy but it's quite hard to get this paint to run so dont worry much about that.
7. Leave to dry for about an hour (for my paint)
8. Put it back on
9. Be happy
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
10. Put inlet manifold back on
11. Realise it was a waste of time
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/icon_razz.gif)
12. Be happy that you know it looks good under there...