I have my 440HP (1969) out of my coronet now. Am going to repaint it before reinstalling. As i am not rebuilding the engine and therefore won't be hot tanking it what is the best method to assure a long lasting paint job?

questions I have are:
1) must all the old paint be removed or just any loose stuff? How do you remove what is on there?

2)Was going to use Mopar rattle can engine paint. After reading I am now scared to as I have read lots of bad reviews of this paint. Is there a great rattle can alternative (street hemi orange) or should I use this as an excuse to get an HVLP set up? need paint suggestions for either appraoch. would spraying it be more enduring?

don't want to cut corners, but also have to do what is practical.

any other suggestion that may help my end result are greatly appreciated.

This all started out a few months ago as i pulled my front bumper to replace it. Now many nuts and bolts later the engine is out, the front end is ready to be disassembled for a rebuild, and a complete underhood detail is under way........If i don't get this engine painted soon I fear I will talk myself into rebuilding while it is out!!! i have been contemplating a cam upgrade......

You will get all kinds of comments about how if you want to do it right, you need to spray it with a gun.

I have always used Plastikote engine enamel (Hemi Orange) and been very pleased. It is true that the spray bombs aren't as durable BUT there are some advantages as well;

- obviously easier and cheaper though that didn't really push me one way or the other

- you can paint individual components separately, easily, at any time and have everything match up

- if you do need to touch something up down the road, again; easy and it matches

- some of the spray booth engines look WAY too shiney and perfect to me. It's easy to do a better job than the factory with a spray bomb as it is.


Anyway, just another point of view before the "paint it properly with a gun" advice starts.

Dave

pressure wash it, wipe it with grease remover and shoot it with plasticote

I for one have had excellent results with the Mopar engine paint. I'm not familiar with what the complaints are, but mine has held up just fine, no peeling or chipping anywhere. It did yellow slightly on one area of the head, so I may touch that up someday, but it's not overly noticable.

With paint there is so much failure or success possible depending on the prep work and technique. Some paint could peel right off and get a terrible review just becuase the person didn't know what they were doing.

My 440 took three full cans to paint, including the intake, valve covers, oil pan water pump etc.

I usually spray the engine down with de-greaser and brake clean. Scrub all the really dirty spots with a wire brush, and pressure wash. After the engine is clean of all grease and gunk, I use a wire wheel on a drill or grinder to remove any rust and/or old paint.

As for painting I have done both spray bomb and auto. paint from a gun. Just depends on what type of resto. you are doing and what you have access to. If you are going to use spray bomb I would use Plasti-kote. I always use primer first either way.

I never use primer on the engine. Never had a problem.

I stumbled across this stuff. It's one of the best aerosol can spray paints I've ever used on anything. It has beautiful coverage, flow and finish durability. A bit pricey, but it gives outstanding results.

Click on these links to learn more.

http://www.hirschauto.com/prodinfo.asp?number=EEA-SPRAY&variation=CHRY%20HM%20OR

http://www.hirschauto.com/engine.pdf

As far as preparation goes. I typically use that Castrol Purple water soluable engine degreaser with a scrub brush and hot water from the water heater to really get it clean before painting.

Mask off what you don't want sprayed, and use a light coat or two and then finish with a medium wet coat. Should take about 3 cans to do a really nice job, but you can probably get away with 2 cans.

I use the paint from Frank Badalson and spray it with a $5 pre-val throw away spray gun with excellent results. Most of the other paints in cans are way to shiney to be correct if thats what your lookin for. The plasticoat paint does look good and sticks well as long as everything is clean .

Do you spray the paint with the Preval sprayer as it comes from Badalson (don't need to thin or anything)?

Also any insight into durability of the product?

Thanks

I just finished painting my 70 440 with the Mopar Performance spray bombs. Everything went just fine. I got the entire base motor completed and it looked great to me....took two cans. I then went on to paint some of the bolt ons (dip stick tube, plug wire brackets etc. This was with a new can of same type paint. Low and behold.... the color and gloss was completely different in the last can which was from a different lot of paint that I purchased. Had to do the entire engine in a final coat again so everything would match. Bottom line on the Mopar Paint... there can be a significant difference in color from lot to lot. Remains to be seen how well it will hold up once the engine is put into use.

Quote:

---

Do you spray the paint with the Preval sprayer as it comes from Badalson (don't need to thin or anything)?

Also any insight into durability of the product?

Thanks

---

I painted this engine with Franks paint back around 1991(bare cast iron, meticulously cleaned and degreased, no primer). IMO the prep is 80-90% of the secret when it comes to durability. This is how it looked last year with some light driving to shows over the years.