<VV> Stock is - Painted Valve Covers?

[Tony Underwood]

At 09:08 hours 10/15/2004 -0700, Rusty Rose wrote:
>When I was doing research for my '69 project, I found
>(like others have said) that the finish on the valve
>covers were an unpainted, fairly crummy and cheap cad
>plating.  But the story didn't end there...

Wasn't that tern plate?    No cad plate on Vair valve covers.   

Tern plate found its way onto all sorts of GM  stuff over the years... even
the top and bottom covers of the later series radios were tern plate rather
than zinc, like most of the 2700 and 1900 series radios of the '60s.   


>I also found some (different sources) to say that they
>had seen some NOS valve covers that they believed were
>painted factory "Chevy orange" new, and may have made
>it onto some '69s.  

I've heard this myself but I've not seen any actually on a car.   


>Further investigation leads me to believe that while
>orange valve covers were never officially offered on
>new Corvairs, they did indeed exist.  One of out local
>NTCA club guys has several "never un-crated" Corvair
>crate engines that you can clearly see the orange
>covers on.    

Crate engines can sometimes be entirely different animals.   I'd not be
surprised to see crate engines painted all over.   Ma Mopar would sell a
crate engine with paint on everything, including aluminum intake manifolds
and crankshaft flange.    Then again I've seen a GM crate engine with no
paint on it at all, just a film of greasy oil.   This, on the floor of
Berglund Chevy, replacement for a warranty failure.     

I have a photo of a boatload stack of bigblock Chevy engines at Tonowanda
on storage racks, hundreds of them ceiling-high, all orange everywhere.
Chevy sure did like that orange paint.    


Who's to say a painted Vair crate engine didn't wind up in a '69 Vair via a
dealer swap for one reason or another?    Me, I don't know myself, but I'd
not doubt it much.  


tony..