Cadillac & LaSalle Club Discussion Forum

In the Nov/Dec 2012 63/64 Cadillac Chapter Newsletter, I included an 'Engine Painting Tips' article from my experience over the years.

I have updated the article a bit and saved as a PDF file and uploaded to our website at this link: http://6364cadillac.ning.com/profiles/blogs/engine-painting-tips

I have also attached the document to this post.
 
Hopefully this will help some of you in your restoration of your engine.

Jason

You almost hate to put that engine back in the car... beautiful! But then again, so is your car. Made a great cover for the latest SS (and a great article too).

Hi
Do you recommend painting the inside of all the various other engine covers (rocker covers, timing chain covers, lifter well cover etc.) that make direct contact with the engine oil ?  Thanks
Joe T

powder coat

I only painted external facing parts. For example the top side of the valve covers...but definitely not the inside constantly splashed with hot oil.  You can powder coat, chrome, paint as you would the exterior of the car, but my painting tips are for simple in the gararge or back yard aerosol can painting that produces excellent results that result in a factory original look.   After the bead blasting my time investment is minimal from 0000 steel wool Acetone wipe down, to successive primer, and two top coats.  As far as durability I painted my transmission with this method 3 years back, have had the entire casing splashed with hot oil (the reason for my engine rebuild) and the paint is as solid on the aluminum casing as the day it was applied.

Never paint the inside of any engine part and keep the outside paint as thin as possible.

One way the oil gets a chance to cool down is by touching the outsides that are in contact with the air.

Too much paint creates a barrier, and retards cooling.

Bruce. >:D

PS.   Plus, the best colour for any performance engine is black, and the flatter the black the better.   Unless the part is Aluminium, then leave that part unpainted.

Hi and thanks
I believe I will powder coat the exhaust manifolds and hand paint all the blue and black engine items. We have a Caterpiller plant here in town and there is an outfit here that powder coats items for them which is good to 1300°. The only color they do for Cat is flat black .
Joe T
PS How did 53 exhaust manifolds come from the factory ?

Great tips!  For aerosol paint, I recommend warming any can in a pan of hot water any time you are going to paint.  The extra heat helps the paint atomize and flow a little better, and you get a little more pressure in the can, which also aids the atomization.  I do this any time of the year, even in the summer time, and it can get pretty hot here. 

Luckily, we have a greenhouse that's mostly empty in the summer time (best time for painting), so that helps cut down on contamination.  I'll also pull the cars out of the garage and use that if I need to for quick paint jobs. 

Yep, In the "Winter Time Painting" section I recommend warming paint and part to paint.   A noted I use a small electric heater but there are many ways to do this. For parts I will often pull into warmest part of the house or by a vent for a few hours.

The best manifold paint I've found (and it allows for touchups prior to shows) is POR 15 high temp.  You have two or three color options there.   The stuff is better than anything else I've tried except of course for actual re-porcelinizing which you really have to do on some of the earlier cars.  The trick to using the stuff is to first do a really good job of blasting and prep.  I use #8 glass bead after degreasing and doing some sanding touchups.  Do a blow off with your air gun after blasting and then a wipe with prep sol.  Be sure the paint and the parts are around 70 degrees or warmer and apply the paint with a brush or spray (brush is fine).  Allow to dry for 24 hrs. and then bolt them on and run the engine for 2 or 3 minutes at idle and let it cool and then do that once or twice more and you should be good to go.  I've tried VHT with hit and miss results.  The POR has never let me down.  Use rubber gloves to keep your body oils off the painted surface and to keep the POR off your skin.  Once POR is dry, you can't get it off your skin, even with lacquer thinner.  It has to literally wear off.
Ken Karrer 1941 6227D coupe

I agree I painted the entire engine on my 58 with Por 15 paints and I love it! It has stayed on and performed well!!

Same here, I 've used POR 15 engine paints on 2 restorations so far. The stuff is great and they actually have the correct blue for older caddies. Other companies didn't seem to have early caddy colors. Good Stuff!

Thank you for posting this Jason, I am pulling my transmission in a few weeks and next year going to rebuild the engine as well. Your manual is already a great help!

Thanks Blade!  Another tip not directly related to engine painting, but definitely related to auto restoration, is to capture a process that works well for you and document as soon as possible after you are finished.  I often go back to this and other "tech tips" that I have written up, and also to the many great ideas and tips others have posted here on the CLC boards! I was just trying to paint some valve covers this past week and of course the pollen is just crazy and was thinking to myself - "did I cover that in my engine painting tips document and when I saw your reply came back to it and sure enough it was there.   It truly is amazing how quickly we forget things! Jason.

Thanks Jason, yes I am also finding out how important documentation is. Like you mentioned I am creating my own process as I go along with the restoration and finding what works best, more and more items are getting labled, bagged and even pictures taken of before removing them. All to often I see people taking parts apart and not knowing how to put them back together or even putting them back the wrong way just to take them apart again - especialy a hassle when you work on a transmission or an engine.

My future plan regarding this: in the past I have done websites for small business so actually I am think about starting a site for the '59s where people can share info about their cars, documentations and hopefully photos of restoration processes to help each other, also to educate the public about these cars. Of course everyone will be welmoce there. Hope I can also accomplish this in the next few weeks.

Your work looks immaculate, the details are just perfect, I would be afraid even to start up one of those engines! I think I'll have to get you up here and do my engine ...  :D

From your documentation I already went to the Bill Hirsch website and found the Cadillac blue paint you suggested, will be ordering some for the transmission - thanks again for your posting, really much appreciated!

Blade~

Just a another trick I did on the recent restoration of my series 62 1960 conv. Always had trouble with the intake manifold burning off the paint after a while and could not find any ultra high heat paint that was the right color. So first I replaced the broken choke tube which was a reason for excess heat then I had the intake powder coated blue. They did not have the correct color blue the closest was post office blue. Then I scuffed it up and sprayed the intake with Bill Hirsch's Cadillac aerosol and they still are blue. What little has discolored is barely noticeable being blue underneath. Also did the valve covers and they came out like glass perfect for pinstriping  the raised Cadillac letters and lines. I warmed the paint in a hot water bath and warmed the parts outside in the hot central California heat and I think it made the paint grip to the powder better than just a metal surface. Been on 2 very long 200 mile rides at freeway speeds and they still look good.
Randy

Wow .. that paint holds that well. I'm glad to hear it and thanks for the tip Randy. I'll have to also try it then on my '59, I am also planning to run an occasional trip with a few hundred miles, sounds like this is the solution to keep the paint lasting.

Thanks again!
Blade~

Hi Jason..

I'm starting to rebuild and repaint the engine to my '54 Fleetwood. I just read your "engine painting" article, thank you very much!  A couple quick questions if I may: 

--Is standard rustoleum paint (gloss or semi-gloss where appropriate) sufficient for the more distant engine parts (eg, oil filter canister, power steering pump, air cleaner and radiator), or should I use high-temp on those as well?  And:
--I used rustoleum self-etching primer on those parts before reading this, will that be sufficient?

Bob

I would use the high temp Engine Paint regardless. I believe at this point I use it on everything from frame, the engine compartment, firewall, etc. I believe is it more durable not just to the higher temps. Perhaps it is overkill but if you put the heat gun on exterior components they can still heat up to almost 200 degrees.  The primer should be fine, but again I had excellent luck with regular Rustoleum Hi Temp Engine Primer.  My engine has about 2000 miles since rebuild from May 2012 and is holding up very well.

How many cans of the Hirsch blue did you need to cover the engine?
Many thanks, Bob

When I painted my 346 engine with the Cadillac green from Hirsch it took about 3/4 of a quart. It covers very well.

I think around 4 cans of the Cadillac Blue for 2 to 3 thin to medium coats.

What about cleaning the engine from old paint/rust etc... You said that you bead blasted it.
Is sandblasting also ok?
I have engine completely dissassembled right now, will cover head surfases, install oil pan and center-section on top (under the  inlet manifold) and all other smaller holes.  Send it to blasting, take it apart after that, wash everything, blow with compresses air , clean everything and paint.  Will it work, or should I stick with hours of work with different wire-wheels etc....?
I mean is there any danger, that sand and will close some oil-channels?

When using Bill Hirch paint, then no primer is needed?

Thanks,
Vallo

For externals such as oil pans, water manifold, intake manifold, exhaust manifold, pulleys, valve covers, top push rod valley cover, air cleaner assembly, brackets, flex plate, and other items that were safe to glass bead blast, I would degrease, bead blast, wet sand, wipe down with acetone, air dry and blow off any small debris with compressor and prime and paint per painting tips.

For engine block and heads they were cleaned at machine ship in high pressure degreasing vat (probably a better name) before assembly.  After I rebuilt engine block, I cleaned rough block exterior with impact wire brush, wiped down with acetone, air dried with compressor, primed and painting per painting tips.

To see the progression through the rebuild, cleaning and painting you might check out this link with further links to each stage including preparing the engine compartment: http://6364cadillac.ning.com/profiles/blogs/jason-engine-rebuild-project-spring-2012 (http://6364cadillac.ning.com/profiles/blogs/jason-engine-rebuild-project-spring-2012)


This was also posted here at this link: http://forums.cadillaclasalleclub.org/index.php?topic=128917.0

As noted in the actual painting tips document (located at http://api.ning.com/files/S813y-uFLk9p90kcOiyBTdwRowlrx2NOOS47ws*kBk0FLx0qlChsAY5TB6CgghcezDteIr0f5iLarEM0sFxgxr20MU-KVsaM/2012NovDecNewsletterMasterENGINEPAINTINGTIPS.pdf (http://api.ning.com/files/S813y-uFLk9p90kcOiyBTdwRowlrx2NOOS47ws*kBk0FLx0qlChsAY5TB6CgghcezDteIr0f5iLarEM0sFxgxr20MU-KVsaM/2012NovDecNewsletterMasterENGINEPAINTINGTIPS.pdf) you will see I'm a big fan of a final wipe down with acetone and a final blowing off with compressed air.
If fact that was how I super-cleaned the Turbo Hydramatic transmission a few years back which you can see at this link: http://6364cadillac.ning.com/photo/albums/jason-s-transmission-project (http://6364cadillac.ning.com/photo/albums/jason-s-transmission-project)