Engine bay paint options...?

Tom, Search turns up 4 pages using "engine compartment paint". Bedliner is obviously alot tougher but doesn't look as nice and doesn't offer the choice of colors that body paint does - although I understand the color choices are expanding. Gloss body color looks great but is a pain to keep clean and keep looking great. Really have to be careful when doing maintenance especially when using a non-black color.

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Bedliner is obviously a lot tougher but doesn't look as nice

2511 has 'bedliner' done by Diamond Liners, out of Santa Fe Springs, CA. This is their only outlet. But their finished product always gathers favorable comments and questions. It is a very fine, uniform texture. I have seen Line-X coatings that are very close, but RHINO Linings are far too lumpy to look good. I have been very pleased with it, and several PCNC owners have followed suit and gone the bedliner method.

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color choices are expanding.

Indeed, colors are an option. BUT they will show the dirt/dust that collects in the valleys much more than a black liner.

Upkeep on my liner is almost none, just a minor cleaning now and then with Simple Green, and some Zaino rubber treatment now and then.

Strongly suggest you look into your local Line-X options.

Larry

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Originally posted by Husker:
Tom, Search turns up 4 pages using "engine compartment paint". Bedliner is obviously alot tougher but doesn't look as nice and doesn't offer the choice of colors that body paint does - although I understand the color choices are expanding. Gloss body color looks great but is a pain to keep clean and keep looking great. Really have to be careful when doing maintenance especially when using a non-black color.

Thanks, I was looking in the wrong forum and didn't use that combination...compartment...

Additionally, I "showed" at the gathering @ Greensboro County Park this weekend.

Not to take away from this thread, but does anyone have the "Magic Sollution" to removing the factory undercoating? I was at a show this past weekend with Larry W. and my wife saw his ehgine compartment and told me "You need to do something with yours."

Any ideas will be appreciated.

George

I found that a solid scraper (1 1/2") with a sharp edge worked well when heated with a heat gun. Too much heat would make it gummy and sticky. Too little heat would make it hard to remove. At the right temp, it would shave right off like cheese. Then I would use gasoline (applied with a spray bottle) and a green dishpan scrub pad to remove the residual stuff.
Keep your cigarettes at least 8" away at this point.
Will

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Then I would use gasoline (applied with a spray bottle) and a green dishpan scrub pad to remove the residual stuff.

I thought you were going to say light a match and burn it off!!

John

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Originally posted by geoshanna:
Not to take away from this thread, but does anyone have the "Magic Sollution" to removing the factory undercoating? I was at a show this past weekend with Larry W. and my wife saw his ehgine compartment and told me "You need to do something with yours."

Any ideas will be appreciated.

George

I'm not too fond of using heat or flames near the gas tank so I used a chemical striper to soften the undercoating in the engine bay then used a paint scraper. If applied correctly the undercoating with usually come out in strips. There are the troublemakers that hang on to the dimples for the spot welds. Use the chemical stripper to apply the final coat then grab a COARSE steel wool in a circular motion to remove the last of the undercoating, washing with water from a garden hose as you go. Remember to apply metal prep or some kind of sealer to protect the now virgin sheetmetal until it's painted.

Have fun

Thanks for the tips guys. It will make a good winter project. I'm having fun driving her now so no other plans until then.

George

I doing the same project. Forget Rustoleum, its crap if you use their red oxide primer which never seems to harden and they the top coat ends up peeling off with almost any pressure from your fingernail.

I'm looking into either linear polyurethane (any color you want) or a two part paint acrylic enamel that you add hardner to. I noticed Summit Racing sells some of these paints. It use to be that you could buy automative paint like Centari or Enron. Supposedly Pettit and Interlux do make paints that are more user friendly.
They offer enamels, one part polyurethane products (No catalyst, "urethane enhanced enamels"), and two part polyurethane's. Hard, harder and hardest (Enron is a two par urethane).
Each of these companies and others also offer professional lines of products. Enron is a professional product.

I live in California which has the EPA protecting even the hobbyist from destroying the planet. I spoke to a paint supply house a few weeks ago...he told me that depending on what I tell him I'm going to apply the paint to, will determine what he can sell me. If I tell him I'm going to put the paint on a gate, he can sell me X, if I tell him I'm going to spray my car with it he can sell me Y. So basically I have to call him four or five times and say I'm putting on a lawn mower, a fence, a washing machine, a boat, and commercial boat. It's nuts, he told me there are products that are incredibly durable that he can't sell me because I have to have a special filtered spray booth...or I have to be a marine application, or it has to be applied only on Sunday. etc. I love government.

I leaning to acrylic enamels that you add a hardner to and they are very very durable, you can drop wrenches and they resist chipping, there also flex additives that you add to the paint that allow you to paint plastic bumpers which allow flex without chipping or cracking. Take a look at this link:
http://www.autocolorlibrary.co...fOwKMCFRv4iAod8RhHcQ

Bed liner spray
http://www.tcpglobal.com/detailsupplydepot/dsd18.aspx

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Originally posted by Tom@Seal Beach:
Bed liner spray
http://www.tcpglobal.com/detailsupplydepot/dsd18.aspx

Have you done this?
Pictures?

No, I've done the acrylic enamels with hardner. Like you, trying to decide what to do.

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I live in California which has the EPA protecting even the hobbyist from destroying the planet.

Perhaps not a bad thing if your children will be living on this planet?

But for a workaround, figure out what you would prefer, and then ask a friend living out of state if they can get it for you. I understand even Nevada is less strict than here.

Larry - not a fan of checkerboard regulations

I have friends in San Diego county that can buy the BAD stuff...not sure why it's outlawed in Orange and LA, but not SD. Brilliant government as usual...I guess people down there aren't effected by the bad stuff.