I've come into possession of a set of hooker ceramic coated shorty's. They have never been used but have been laying in a garage for a couple of years. There is some rust coming through the finish. I suspect these were painted with ceramic paint and not actually ceramic coated. True ceramic coating shouldn't have rust should they? Will sand blasting remove the coating so they can be refinished?

Steve

 

There should be no rust on ceramic coating unless the coating was damaged. Sandblasting and acid dipping are a normal part of the ceramic coating process on used headers.

 

I have seen a lot of cheap ceremic coated headers rust. Of course Hookers are far from cheap.

 

Its not the HEADERS problem befing cheap or $1000 stainless headers.
Its the PROCESS of prepping for the ceramic coating.
If not prepped / cleaned good its gonna rust and flake off.

use a acidic solution and media blasting to get the old stuff off.

 

I was not trying to insinuate that the cheap headers material was lacking, of course they are cheap for a reason, and it may very well be due in part to a lack of proper prep work.

Paying unskilled workers low, make for a cheaper product, and thus cheaper quality.

You would think Hooker would not fall into this, but it appears even they are lacking in some point of quality control or proper training.

Of course, I am sure they farm out the coating, so it may very well fall on an outside company, that is probably coating everyones headers, but the end result is an inferior product the reflects on the name stamped on the tubes, not the coaters.

 

I think I need to clarify something. I don't the the headers were ceramic coated from the factory. It looks like some one painted them with ceramic paint. There are a few runs and the inside of the pipes have no coating at all. It looks like they were originally just plain headers. Sorry for the confusion. I'm wondering, since it's paint, if it can be removed with a solvent.

 

Aircraft stripper might, but even it won't touch some of the more interesting high-temp paints. Sandblasting would be the way to go in that case.

 

Most likely yes, especially if as you indicated, it looks like some kind of
rattle-can product application.

Now for the bigger question?
What kind of refinishing are you anticipating
-- a top-notch coating like Jet-Hot, who will do their own prep?
(Coating my Hooker shorties was about $240.)
-- or another rattle-can product that you will apply.
(such as VHT products, which are very good quality)

Good luck, and post-up about the results.

 

Interesting this was brought up. I sent the headers on my S10 to Jet-Hot. They are starting to show signs of rust in spots. They have small little circles coming up on them. (Unless at some point maybe I got some kind of airborn particle on them that rusted?)

 

Well, I got a chance over the weekend to do a little experimenting. It looks like whatever they used was cured. It's hard as a rock. The aircraft stripper didn't touch it. The grinder ate it up pretty good. Problem is, there is no way I can get all of the little nooks and crannies with a grinder. There is some rust between the pipes where the finish wasn't applied. Oh, well. Anybody want to give them a try? Pay the shipping and they are yours.

Steve

 

Im sure a grinder ate up the metal also. what did you use? a stone? muradic acid solution will take it off.

I do ceramic coatings.acid bath and aluminum oxide media blastic is used to strip the old coatings off. Then a good cleaning and pre bake to get em ready for reshooting.

 

Nope. I didn't eat up the metal. Just went down far enough to remove the rust and smoothed it out.