Painting my engine?
 

What does everyone use to paint their powerplants in their trucks? My old 350 was originally light blue (out of an 80's burb) and at one point in it's life it was spraypained dark blue, but the paint never stuck. I am thinking of going with either chev orange, light blue, or just a basic black or silver. The block, heads and oil pan are what need to be done. Basically, what I'm wondering is what is the prepwork involved and what paint should I use.

Also, while I'm at it I noticed my exhaust manifolds are rusty. Is there any fix for those sort of a good sandblast and some jet coating? The truck will be a driver, and I've heard how fast headers burn through when run on a daily driver, so I think I'll pass on them (plus I have brand new dual exhaust and I doubt it would line up with any headers).

Alot of people have had good luck with por-15 engine paints. Do a search, Txfirefighter had a engine painted chevy orange and it looked great. They have engine kits that comes with everything you need to paint your engine.

Never tried painting my exhaust manifolds but eastwood has some paint for manifolds. Haven't used it personally but have been happy with Eastwoods stuff in the past. http://www.eastwood.com/shopping/pro...iProductID=733

I had manifolds "Jet" coated before. I took them to a metal coatings place in St. Louis. The maifolds were cast iron and rusty looking. They coated them with a silver finish (inside and out) that they said will never discolor or come off. I match ported them before I took them in. It cost $200. They had another finish that was more that would keep the heat down in the engine compartment. I spent alot of money and time on the engine with ervy single part refinished. It was beautiful when it was done. I have pictures of the mainifolds if you want to see them. Look in the phone book under "metal coating" and there will be places.

Hey Mudd, unless somethings changed over the last few years you will have to send those manifolds off to Calgary to be jet coated. Only do it yourself option is to use Eastwood's kit. I have seen manifolds home coated and they look great, but I cannot say anything pro/con about the durability. Apparently the POR 15 kit is supposed to give a real nice finish..will try this myself I think.

POR 15- absolutely. I'll never use sparay cans again. This stuff is bombproof. Brake fluid, gasoline, carb spray, nothing affects it.

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...d=106831&stc=1
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...d=106833&stc=1
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...d=106834&stc=1
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...d=106838&stc=1

where is a good place to get this por-15? also does it come in different colors?


thanks
Ralph

I buy mine straight from POR 15. Their phone number is on the website.

All POR 15 distributors are supposed to sell at the same price, so there's not much reason to shop around. POR sets the price on their products.

They have a lot of color options available.

you can go to the web site and see the colors that they have.

they only thing with POR is that they say to let paint cure for 8days before starting the motor
also the motor needs to be squeky clean.

I painted my motor with POR15 too (Black):

my vote would be to go chevy orange! When I had my engine rebuilt they guy
stripped the engine and cleaned the outside. He didnt sandblast but I think he
used solvent.

TX Firefighter,
I have bought the POR15 system and will be painting my engine next week. I would like to know you procedure for painting the components. To be more specific, did you assemble the engine and then paint it? It looks like most of the fasteners are painted, before or after assembly? Did you spray paint or brush on the finish? The valve covers look sprayed. I would hate to make a mistake, since this stuff is so hard to get off. I also bought the POR15 gray manifold paint and will post how it works out.

I did mine in same color the truck will be with PPG DCC, the most important thing is cleaning, I scrubbed mine three times and still had some problems but not bad for first with DCC

I agree Por 15. Although por recommends brushing it on, it is very difficult to get the paint on the valve covers and pan smooth. No problem on the cast parts. Thin and have it sprayed if you can.

I went with the hi-temp VHT rattle can - yet to see how it will hold up to actual uses. Sure looks great initially.

http://yukon.b0xen.us/bbproject/bigblock25.jpg

I sprayed mine...this is the only POR 15 paint (Engine Enamel) that you can thin with laquer thinner

I know you asked TX about assembly and painting.
Here's my take on it....
depends on how much detail you want to put into the motor. - i assembled the the entire short block then bolted the pan, timing cover and heads on with a few bolts (ones i had around that i didn't care if they got painted or not - two under the V.C.'s on the heads and a few on the pan and timing cover.) then i masked off the Intake valley, valves/springs if you aren't painting the valve covers and the exahust ports and the water pump holes @ the front of the block.
if your really into the detail like i did on my BBC, i layed a few strips of 2" masking tape across the intake ports on the heads, then set the intake on the motor, and traced around the edges of the intake with a razor blade. then take the intake off, and pull the top part of the tape off. - i did that because the intake doesn't cover the entire intake side of the head (basically cleans it up and prevents it from getting all rusty looking)

and sprayed it. I did the water pump @ the same time..just hung it off a small chain on the motor hoist.

After it dryed a good couple of days i took the motor back apart and re assembled it with the gaskets and all the hardware (i used stainless for most everything (except the head bolts..which are just Black Oxide ARP's))

Doing it this way make the motor look very "detailed" - you can see all the bolt heads and you can see the gaskets (especially if you are using Blue Fel-Pro's) if you don't want to use stainless hardware, you can always take all your hardware punch it through some cardboard and spray bomb them black or silver or to match your truck or whatever

or you can just assemble the engine entirely and paint the whole thing all in one shot, but i would remove the waterpump so you get color behind it.

just my opinion anyway
it is a lot of work to do the "detailed" method but it was worth it to me, because there will be no fenders or hood on my '33 and the motor will be right out there for people to see..so i wanted it to look halfway decent

sorry to steal your answer TX

Really sounds like good stuff. How does the POR 15 hold up on exhaust manifolds. Anyone have any experience with that?

I am going to use the "Bill Hirsch" line of engine enamels on my truck. I have heard good things about both companies though.

I brush painted the whole thing all together. 2 coats

You might also look into painting the lifter valley, tops of the heads (where the rocker arms go), and behind the timing cover.
Use epoxy paint, and only epoxy paint, to paint the insides. The engine oil will run down out of these areas more easily, and there will be less engine sluge build up.
Make sure it is epoxy paint only. Enamel will flake off and become part of the sludge.
You want to clean the areas you're going to paint with lacquer thinner.
Don't use primer, just shoot on a thin coat, let it get sticky, then spray on the full wet coat.
You can use a rag dipped in lacquer to clean out the lifter bores after you finish painting.

Todd

Great info!I was planning trying out the POR engine paint and now I'm definitely going to.

The eastwood manifold paint does not hold up well, so I replaced it with the POR15 manifold paint. The POR is truely the best of the two, the eastwood takes more work and does not hold up as well.

Careful. Many V8 street engines need the oil to drain slowly for more cooling of the oil before it reaches the pan. The oil draining down may add to lub needs, too. Race engines can have paint or gyptol-induced, slippery lifter valleys since they have monster cooling systems and don't care about wear & tear on parts that will be replaced soon and don't have 100k+ engine longevity concerns. At least, make necessary mods to allow for fast oil drainback.

On performance engines, lifter valley sludge is most often cause when someone thought a thermostat that opens at a lower temp than oem would make the engine run cooler. The resulting lengthier warmup times kept the oil cool longer, thus enabling sludge buildup. Many short driving sessions that don't bring the engine to operating temp can also aggravate the situation. Too thick viscosity oil for ambient temps can also cause or aggravate sludge build up. Oil change intervals, oil filter quality, oil quality, air filter quality, blowby levels, PCV condition, and any entry ways for dirt into the engine all potentially play a role in sludge buildup. I doubt that unpainted lifter valleys ever cause sludge buildup solely from being unpainted.

One way to promote "flow out" on the POR15 is to use those cheapie bullet shaped little sponge rollers you can get at hardware store. works great on smooth surfaces.

Here my dad painting the engine and trans. We used PPG epoxy primer and paint to match the car color. Just cleaned the surface real well and tape off any areas you dont want paint to get into.

I think I'm going to go with the POR 15 on the engine and manifolds and see what happens. Thanks!

I sprayed mine with a porcelin(sp) high temp Chevrolet orange. Looks good, but turned out crappy on valve covers, but didn't care since I used them just for painting. :D Here's a pic. I still have to clean the valve covers. :)
David