Powder coat on ZF

The POR-15 people have a clear coat for aluminum wheels and such that I'm going to try on mine.

Be aware that real powder coating is a plastic coating thats sprayed on, then MELTED with high heat- up to 400 degrees in some types. Needless to say, this will destroy all the seals & gaskets in a ZF, as well as risking a fire or at least severe degradation of the lube inside. The successful powder coatings I've seen involved disassembling the transaxle, coating, then reassemby. Not a job for someone who's unfamiliar with tranny overhauls; I've overhauled many US-made transmissions and even transaxles, but the ZF is something different! So far, I've spent a total of 6 weeks trying to reaseemble such a ZF that I bought as a total basket-case ready for powder coating. FYI, the gasket set costs $68 and.seals are another $100 or so.

Husker......be very careful with the clear POR15. I tried the 2 part clear on a section of the Polished Bellhousing. I did a very good job of prepping the surface prior to POR 15 application. the P15 proceeded to fish eye and ......what to call it....swell in places where there were no imperfections. And this was on a newly polished bellhousing. I used to do show car paint jobs as a kid, so I know how to prep for paint. I even used POR15's prep as the last step in addition to other methods, and nope, it just came out poorly. Wound up sanding and polishing it again and then used Zoops to seal the just polished aluminum. Been a year since and it still looks pretty good. So do a small, easy to fix section with POR15...If it works for you, it should look great....good luck. Regards Doug.H #6434

Doug H: Thanks for the heads up, may save me a BUNCH of time and effort! I've used Zoops before, maybe I'll give it a shot.

You want to send something to John Taphorn. He painted his. It looks very nice.

I don't think he did anything special - just cleaned it up, prepared it, and shot it.

It isn't rattle-can paint, but it isn't anything weird either.