Ok, here are some progress pictures, after painting the engine bay. I'm using a lot of tips from Redraif, such as masking techniques, brands of stuff to use, and I used bbq paint, as she did, which holds up well to heat. It's a flat look as welll, which is appealing to me at the moment.

I didn't do a SUPER job, but I'm selling the car, so I didn't wanna go all out, we were just going for respectable here. When we paint the car itself, we're going to be super meticulous, but this is the engine bay for crying out loud. There's a lot of touching up I have yet to do, but that's the beauty of using BBQ paint, I can do touchups with a brush

The in progress pictures really put me to shame. I didn't think there was a lot of rust on my car, 'til I pulled the battery and started taking off accessories.

Thanks Shannon,

Here's before:


Here's during:







Lastly, here is the finished engine bay paint pictures:





What do you guys think? Unfortunately, while I was painting, I moved one of my a/c hardlines too much, and it started to leak. I went to tighten the line, and found out the leaking was caused by rusted lines, and the line broke Freon leaked out, and now I have to replace the line and recharge it.

Mathius

 

I'm gonna bead blast the valve covers, and do them an anodized blue, and polish up the plenum (that's going slow ) and lower intake. Once that stuff's back on the car, I'm gonna degrease the engine, sand away some of that surface rust and grime on the lines and pulley's, and black magic all the hoses. Then I have all blue convoluted tubing and silicone hose for the vaccuum lines, plus a chrome radiator cap and master cylinder cap. Lastly, I'm gonna upgrade to the dual snorkel intake, which I recieved in the mail the other day, so that should clean up the engine bay considerably.

Mathius

 

Yea, that bay needed some TLC. Looking good so far!! Are you going to keep it gray? Or paint it back to blue, or some other color?

 

I think it's illegal to have Freon leak out because it ruins the Ozone!

 

according to the letter of the law, yes. But if X amount of cars are leaking , are the owners all going to be cited?

Back to topic: If you want a glossy finish to the engine bay, shoot it w/some of the hight temp clear cote paint. I did on my intakes & man did it make a difference

 

Dale: Paint is actually black, but it does some trick lighting effect, depending on how you look at it.

F585: I don't know why you wasted your time with this one. The line broke. End of story. It was not intentional, and believe me, I wish it hadn't, 'cuz it'll probably cost me close to $100 to fix and get recharged doing it myself, and I just paid somewhere 'round $300 to have GM do it for me a year ago. The freon took about 10 seconds to leak out of the line, so I really doubt anyone caught me. I just hope you were joking with that line.


Project: 85 2.8 bird: My buddy and I aren't sure if we want to go gloss or not, the BBQ paint will obviously hold up against heat, we're just a bit worried about scratching, etc. Every car in the world has a gloss finish, but this flat look is really appealing for some reason.

Mathius

 

painting the engine bay makes a big difference! It's looking good! When I did mine, my dad bought some Eagle One Aluminum acid cleaner andthat stuff took off all the grease and grime. Then I just took a paint brush and painted the engine itself with Duplicolor(sp?) Aluminum color engine paint. I did some brackets with the Universal Red. That red matched my car exactly too! It looked so good I used it on my rims valve covers too lol.

Here's a couple shots of the engine:




engine paint on the rims. It's holding up really well too. No cracking or peeling what so ever.

 

Looks good! Only bummer is you've got to get an alignment now

 

Its definately an improvement. That is one thing I am not looking forward to doing.

 

I'll probably just get an alignment anyways, but I'm gonna assume you're talking about the caster camber plates being removed? I did measure them with a ruler before I removed them, so hopefully they'll be close when I put them back on.

I didn't wanna half-*** it and not paint under them, especially when the caster camber plates themselves were in such bad shape. I'm even thinking that my a/c busting a line was a blessing in disguise, 'cuz I may just pull the whole thing out now and finish off the firewall properly. You have no idea how much of a pain in the *** it was trying to paint around the blower motor box and such.

My holdup right now is trying to get a sandblaster from my buddy. He's in southern Ohio at the moment, and I'm waiting for him to get back, so I can pick it up.

Thanks for the compliments guys, I'll post pics of the finished product.

Mathius

 

Yeah, when I had my suspension apart, I was thinking "Man, I shoulda just bought a can of semigloss black,and painted this strut tower. Oh well." I know the price sucks but the KYB mounts are $60/each... they come painted a nice gloss black!