HOW TO PAINT ALLOY ???

[Blown_FC]

I'm painting my inlet manifold ( XU1 Holden Type ), as you can;t really chrome alloy, andI hate polishing, as you can't always get into all the nooks and crannies, and you have to keep polishing them, which is kind of hard when on the car....so I am opting to go for that FACTORY clean look of an alloy manifold.

I've dabbled with a few chrome, silver and even aluminium engine paints, but they all look kind cheap and nasty.

So I finally found ( what should be the right stuff ), a can of VHT Hi-Temp CAST paint.   THis comes in 2 colours..cast alloy and cast iron.    I'm hoping this CAST alloy paint is better than the standard aluminium colour paint.

Anyway, I've had the manifold Garnet Blasted and is looking real good...dull...but real good...so I don't want ot ruin it by painting it the worng way.

Should I just paint the Cast ALloy paint straight onto the blasted manifold, or should I etch prime it first.

I don't want to make the mistake of putting on too many layers of paint, as you lose that rough pitted look of cast alloy ( if you know what I mean ).

Any ideas ?

[craiga]

try POR-15 products. I have seen their alloy finish stuff and its VERY good.

http://www.ppc.au.com/category34_1.htm

[Glenn 'Stinky' Stankevicius]

What about powder coat? it should be OK for inlet manifolds and as tuff as 2K Paint.
PowerKote/Jet-Hot etc can coat manifolds, at a premium though.
I heard somewhere that the best surface to paint is freshly blasted, no need for primers etc. But I'd reading the intructions on the VHT paint label first.

[earlyholdenfan]

Stinky
try this link to the POR15 website and have a look under the heat paint section, this stuff does not need primer on blasted surfaces.

http://www.ppc.au.com/index.htm

Jethot coatings in Melbourne will coat the items with a lifelong ceramic based coating inside and out, that looks amazing and will self sacrifice so that the inside and outside will always remain as good, if not better than new. A mate of mine had headers coated and although they glowed red during the initial start up for 5 minutes they returned to factory shine as it cooled and no colour distortion. Yes it is expensive but it is the absolutely best you can get. link below.

http://www.jet-hot.com

Cheers
Matt

[Blown_FC]

Yep....been there done that and been burnt !
Not a big fan of JET HOT !

I sent the alloy steering box to them to be jet coated.   Cost me $100 plus freight, got it back, and sure it looked ok...not chromed....not painted....different but good.

Problem is, that in the firing process, they neglected to remove the end nut ( the big nut with the inch wide thread at the end of the housing ), so metal got hot, fused together.

When I got it home and tried to remove the nut so I could insert the worm de and teeth ect, it would not come apart.   To cut a long story short.....it was totally useless.....even after I decided to trash it, no amount of heating, cooling, drilling, smashing, twisting ect would get this thing off.

Hence my original post.......I don't want to polish it......and I don't want to wast another $100 Jet Coating it to have a rare XU1 Triple Manifold potenitally ruined aswell..

Stinky....I am more interested in what you said about NOT using primers on blasted alloy......that is my real question.

Cheers and thanks to everyone for your help and replies.

[Glenn 'Stinky' Stankevicius]

I can remember a story in particular, but I have heard by word of mouth etc also, never tried it though.
The story was in Street Machine, a long time ago, it was the feature on the Pro-Street EA Falcon owned by a guy who ran Weldwell Engineering. This goes back a long way and is really testing the memory.

The link that CraigA put up shows the polishing resto kit by POR. You can see the little tin of Glisten PC, if you are happy with the current blasted finish, just get a can of this. It is like a 2 pack clear coat to go over raw alloy, I have seen a sampler at Paint Supplies SA. They have(had) a piece of alloy half coated in the stuff and it is way tuff, you can see where people have tried to scratch it and failed but dug into the alloy that wasn't coated. Sticks like the proverbial to a blanket, not a sign of lifting or chipping and the alloy underneath still looks fresh. It is supposed to be fairly heat resistant too.

[Blown_FC]

Thanks Stinky.......it would make sense that you SHOULD be able to paint directly on the blasted alloy, as it is now rough and totally clean.  I think you really only need etch primer when the alloy surface is a bit shiny still, as it will help the paint stick.

Here's another tip I learned if you want the best looking deepest glossiest, clean your teeth in the reflection exhaust headers...

Just before bolting the extractors to your car....have them acid bathed....then with a pair of gloves on...spray with CRC or similar lubricant spray....then with gloves on to avoid finger prints touching the surface, bolt them to your car and runn the engine long and sort of hard, to get the pipes real hot.   AND THATS IT  ( Apparantly ).  A few hot rodders do this.   THe only maintenance, is that every time you finish driving the car, you must respray with CRC.   Sounds time consuming, but it would only be those SHOW cars that would do this anyway.

Apparantly a guy stumbled accross this by mistake.  He acid bathed his extractors ready for chroming or painting ect, and in the meantime, had accidentally spilt oil over them.  For some rea, he just gave up on the idea of chroming, and just bolted them on the engine and started using the car, and the finish came up liek a mirror ( apparantly ).

He swears by this method and laughs at anyone spending money on Jet Coating, Chroming, Painting ect.

Not sure though...would have to see it for myself !

[ChrisB]

I have used the cast iron high temp paint you are talking about, very happy. I had the exhaust and inlet manifolds apart and sand blasted, then wax and greased them and painted. Approx 1500 miles later and a couple of those were 3 hour runs and still look good as when first done.
As for the POR 15 Glisten, I had my Speco rocker cover polished and then I sprayed it with the glisten, man it still shines and a quick wipe with a cloth is all that is required to keep clean, were as before had to polish it all the time to keep the shine. I tried brushing it like they say you can, but it looked crap.

Hope this helps

ChrisB  

[zulu]

I agree, brushing the Glisten is a waste of time & product, they should remove these directions from the label.
Gary

[Blown_FC]

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts.  I did the dead on Saturday......had my Manifold Garnet Blasted, and then applied 3 coats of VHT CAST ALLOY paint.

VERY HAPPY !

It now looks like it would have the day in came out of th box.

Rough pitted/blasted texture coated in a silver, metal flec alloy paint....no cheap chrome imitations, no reflections, just as it should be !

It's nice to see an engine all tarted up with custom paint and chrome everyting, but to my way of thinking, it is also nice to see an engine the way it was meant to be.  ORIGINAL !

Whether it be an Old grey....XU1 Red or a 308...but...factory colour....alloy looking like alloy, and factory stickers ( if applicable ) !

I was thinking about painting the engine the same colour as the car ( Champagne engine in Burgundy Engine Bay )....but now I look at it.....I think I want the original XU1 look, complete with 3300 XU1 sticker atop a chrome manifold !