How to paint engine compartment peices
 

Hello everyone,

You know when you get a rebuilt engine or buy a new car, the long block sometimes is a nice shinny black color and it lasts a long time. How do they do that?!?!

In the past, i have tried to use high temperature enamal paint from walmart and it lasts only a couple months and starts to fade or come off. So i never done it again. I did NOT use clearcoat, was that my problem?

Should i use black primer, then black enamal paint, then clearcoat? anyway to speed up the curing process or make it more durable? Thanks in advance.

You can take a look at this page, hope it helps.

http://www.geocities.com/e36rulz/EnginePaint.html

Better quality paints make a big difference. Check out http://www.eastwoodco.com/ this is where the resto shops go to get their paints.

Good luck and show us some good before and afters!

They may be powder coated, or if paint are probably catalyzed. Air dryed spray cans are never going to be that durable. But even with the greatest paint in the world surface preparation is everything. Automotive paint stores are usually a good source of advice for such things.

deanyel is right about preparation. Speaking from experience, I built a GM 350 from the block up for my streetrod. I had the block hot-dipped, then did lots of grinding on the surfaces that show. This was followed with a liberal dose of metal prep, then high-build primer, sanding, and finally Dupont Centari. This is a common 3 part catalyzed automotive paint. You could go with base/clear, but that would be silly on an engine blok, IMO. And don't let anyone tell you that the heat will ruin the paint, since if your block gets hot enough to burn off the paint (assuming it's been properly applied and the surface correctly preped), you have other problems. Expect some colour changes around the exhaust manifolds, though. To do this yourself, engine in car, I'd expect that getting off all the surface contaminants would be a real challenge. And, unless you have a buddy in the business, there's a lot of money to spend on the paint itself, because the reducers and activators don't come in small containers, even though you could get a pint of paint to do the job..

Hello Everyone and thank you for the reply. Just to clarify, i did not mean i was going to repaint the long block, i was just using them as an example of durability in engine paint.

I have a couple small nick nack peices I want to paint. I took the parts off the car and used paint remover and took it down all the way to the metal/aluminum.

I used black shinny enamal paint and put a couple layers. Then i used the high temperature clear coat paint. I am hoping that will the clear coat high temp paint, that it will help make it last longer.

I dont want to use Gunk foamy engine brite degreaser on my engine someday only to find the paint coming off, lol.

Question: will putting the small pieces in my oven help speed up the drying/curing time? I know paint shops have those big booths to help speed up drying time, since i have small engine peices, maybe i can use my home oven for this purpse :confused:

It's not a good idea to use your oven. You don't want any residual chemicals getting in your food, plus you would stink up your house. :(

To accelerate drying of small painted engine parts, use a hair dryer. Just be sure you do this in a well ventilated area, and when you wife isn't home!

Watch getting the heat too concentrated in one area. Its a bummer when you have to start over...... don't ask.

Haasman

Ok, another quick question. The paint I am using is "high temperature enamal". Is it mandatory that I use a primer? Its not like I am going to be sanding these small peices or anything, and the paint appears to be sticking. So can i just skip the priming process?