Removing rocker cover & engine mount/bracket

[Space Cadet]

Long story short I'd like to remove my rocker cover and give it a clean up, but its held in place by the engine mount/bracket on the left hand side. I've heard that removing the bracket interferes with the cams - don't know how true this is and I've never seen underneath the bracket so don't yet know what exactly it covers or connects to.Is there no way that I can just support the weight of the engine with a jack and carefully remove the bracket and also the rocker cover without disturbing whatever's underneath?

 

[MartinR]

Rocker cover has part of something to do with the cams on the underside of it. The belt and pulleys have to come off iirc

 

[Dan@SJM]

The rocker cover cannot be removed onless your take the cambelt off.

The mount bracket can, support the engine from underneath and undo the 3 16mm bolts and 1 nut.

 

[Space Cadet]

Thanks guys. Bugger, I was hoping I could just leave the cams and belts in place and just carefully remove the rocker cover. I've only fairly recently had a set of cams and new belts put on so I'm not going to pay for a cam service just to clean up the cover. The mount bracket is fine so don’t especially need to remove this. Thanks again.

 

[MartinR]

Clean it in situ, then give a nice coat of paint. Thats what i did.

 

[Space Cadet]

Thanks. That's actually the problem, I paid for it to be cleaned and sprayed with crackle paint when I had the cams done, but the crackle finish isn't great (no reflection on the guys who did it, I just think it’s the paint). I wish I'd just asked for normal enamel or similar. What paint did you use and did you paint it on or use a spray-can?

 

[MartinR]

exhaust manifold spray paint, sprayed into the lid then used a tiny brush to apply it.

No brush marks either

 

[Space Cadet]

Thanks. Looks good by the way. Ok, food for thought then. Think it might end up being one of those jobs I wish I hadn't started if I attempt to get the old crackle paint off. Presumably you left the sparkplugs in and just painted down into the 'tubes' a bit?

 

[MartinR]

yeh just removed the ht leads.

Thanks ,by the way it took me near on 3 hours just to paint it 2 coats though.

 

[Space Cadet]

Thanks, will give it some serious thought.