Cleaning and Painting

There was a lot of cleaning and painting to be done on this trip - valve cover, transmission bell housing, the engine block, ...

Below is a picture of some of the parts needing an exterior refresher...

Below is what the bell housing looked like before.  There was a lot of debris and grease that needed to be wire brushed and kerosene cleaned off.

..and what it looked like after...

After a good scrub done of the engine, I masked off parts that should not be painted and used a brush to paint on black, high heat resistant paint.

Prior to this trip, I had always assumed that you needed to use engine-specific spray paint for the engine block, but after talking to Fred, he had always used generic high heat resistant paint for all his engines and did not have issues.  So if it worked for Fred, I figured it will work for me.


Being able to paint on the paint with a paintbrush meant I did not have to mask off everything, just the edges that were not to be painted (so much easier to prep).  The paintbrush can leave slight brush marks, but with the rough, casted surface of the engine block, you cannot see a difference.  The only place where this is slightly noticeable is the oil pan and you have to get really close to notice this.

I think it came out really well, but you'll have to wait until the next post to see for yourself.  :-)