Paint/powder coat engine cases

[ososlow]

Whatchya guys think good or bad idea as far as cooling goes?

[Deleted]

Yeah i was thinking bad idea as far as any kind of coating..but polishing would look awesome.

[ososlow]

Yeah polishing was my first idea. Ive tried it a couple times, with various sucsses.but it looks like theres gonna be a couple high vis areas that are gonna be real hard to make look good. So I was gonna try to find chrome or nickel pc. The valve cover will be polished

[Deleted]

yeah my valve cover turned out real shiny...too bad it cant be seen lol

[ososlow]

What did you start with? I was thinking 1000.

[90GTVert]

I did kind a quick job on my valve cover. It's been a while though so I'm not sure where I started.


Here's an engine that I did, again real quick.


Here's a frame brace that's actually a good job for a change.



Lately I have been starting out with a die grinder and medium to fine sanding discs. Depends what the material is like to start. Always use the fine before moving on. Then I go to 400 grit sandpaper. That's where I spend a lot of time for a good job. Then I use steel wool along with a polish and by then it's an OK lustre. End with a high speed buffer on some kind and 2 stages of polishing compounds. Bench buffer works best but when it doesn't work for tight spots and such a dremel or drill with buffing wheels works. I'm by far no pro, that's just the most efficient method I have. In the past I have gone all the way up to 2000 grit paper before polsihing, but I can't say the results are a lot different. I did the bar above as described and so far people seem to think it's chrome.

[ososlow]

all three of em look good to me. did you have any trouble spots on the cases that you werent real happy with

[90GTVert]

Definitely. You can kinda see in that pic around the places where bolts go through to hold the case halves it's kinda crappy. If you don't want to put a lot of time into it, there will be some spots that don't look great. Doing the sanding and polishing anywhere that you can't work easily with larger stuff is a real chore. That frame brace has no tricky spots and it was something like 5 hours of work for a good polish. The valve cover was 15 minutes for a good enough polish. It could probably be done in an hour or so though if you had a better way to sand than by hand. One looks like a mirror, the other has all kinds of imperfections. Patience is the biggest skill involved in a good finish. Not really worth all that time though unless it's something people are gonna see up close or that you really care about.

[ososlow]

my motor will be out in the open.... well except for the cyl. and head. I just finished tearing the cases apart and was surprised at how thick the walls were. Im starting to think the pc wont be much of a problem. Some harleys have black motors too. Maby ill just add an oil cooler

[90GTVert]

Oh, on the original question that I skipped lol...

"The question keeps coming up about doing cylinders and cylinder heads. I have seen it done, but I would never do it to one of my own. I would STRONGLY advise NOT to coat these. You want to dissipate heat, not retain heat by putting an insulator over it! . Powder coating can be a great thermal and electrical insulator."

From here : my.execpc.com/~davewrit/Powder.html

[ososlow]

Oh yeah never wanted to do the cyl. or head. I ment just the crank case/trans parts. Im still gonna leave all the plastics on the motor.

[89CamminGT]

I painted mine black (not PC) and it seemed to do fine. A light coat of black will help radiate more heat away. Racers do the same thing to aluminum radiators(end tanks) to help them throw off more heat.

[aeroxbud]

That polishing looks ok to me. I was thinking of polishing my trans case