diff --git a/.github/workflows/fvt-base.yml b/.github/workflows/fvt-base.yml
index 2707fcb8..8c20711a 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/fvt-base.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/fvt-base.yml
@@ -56,7 +56,8 @@ jobs:
           kubectl get pods -n kube-system
 
       - name: Set controller image tag
-        run: echo "IMAGE_TAG=$(date +'%Y%m%dT%H%M%S%Z')" >> $GITHUB_ENV
+        run: |
+          echo "IMAGE_TAG=$(date +'%Y%m%dT%H%M%S%Z')" >> $GITHUB_ENV
 
       - name: Update configs
         # Update the image tag and reduce some resource request amounts to allow FVTs to run
@@ -64,7 +65,7 @@ jobs:
         # is also adjusted for these environments.
         # Disable the torchserve ServingRuntime for now (insufficient resources to run them all).
         run: |
-          sed -i 's/newTag:.*$/newTag: '"${{ env.IMAGE_TAG }}"'/' config/manager/kustomization.yaml
+          sed -i 's/newTag:.*$/newTag: "'${{ env.IMAGE_TAG }}'"/' config/manager/kustomization.yaml
           sed -i '0,/cpu:.*$/s/cpu:.*$/cpu: 100m/' \
             config/default/config-defaults.yaml \
             config/runtimes/mlserver-1.x.yaml \
diff --git a/scripts/deploy/iks/deploy-mm-serving.sh b/scripts/deploy/iks/deploy-mm-serving.sh
index 2e4cec84..36a416ce 100644
--- a/scripts/deploy/iks/deploy-mm-serving.sh
+++ b/scripts/deploy/iks/deploy-mm-serving.sh
@@ -74,7 +74,8 @@ curl -s "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes-sigs/kustomize/master/hack
 mv kustomize /usr/local/bin/kustomize
 
 # Update target tag and namespace/organization
-sed -i.bak 's/newTag:.*$/newTag: '"$GIT_COMMIT_SHORT"'/' config/manager/kustomization.yaml
+# enclose commit short hash in quotes to avoid it being interpreted as an int
+sed -i.bak 's/newTag:.*$/newTag: "'${GIT_COMMIT_SHORT}'"/' config/manager/kustomization.yaml
 sed -i.bak 's/newName:.*$/newName: '"$DOCKERSANDBOX_NAMESPACE\/modelmesh-controller"'/' config/manager/kustomization.yaml
 rm config/manager/kustomization.yaml.bak
 
diff --git a/scripts/install.sh b/scripts/install.sh
index aa09f9ba..b66facb0 100755
--- a/scripts/install.sh
+++ b/scripts/install.sh
@@ -338,6 +338,7 @@ if [[ $enable_self_signed_ca == "true" ]]; then
   rm default/kustomization.yaml.bak
 fi
 
+info "kustomize build default"
 kustomize build default | kubectl apply -f -
 
 if [[ $dev_mode_logging == "true" ]]; then