Lot of little tasks taken care of recently-replaced a bunch of rubber bits, fixed my flaky brake lights with a new ground, replaced the factory 7/16-14 export brace bolts that were pretty crusty with new 316 stainless bolts, vacuumed the trunk and interior and a few more. Working on the new to me 393” Cleveland prepping it for paint now. Next week I’m going to drop off the intake and valve covers for the 393 for blasting and powder coat and get some trim bits to a local restoration place for a repair and polishing.
I’ve been spending more time driving this summer and fall than working on projects but I finally did get the engine cleaned, prepped, primed, and painted. I used the KBS Coatings Motor Coater system. Prior to that process I used a variety of mechanical and chemical cleaners to remove the old paint and grease. The KBS stuff had a cleaner, a rust neutralizer, a rust seal primer then the top color coat. I’m pleased with what it looks like now.
Silver rust sealing primer
Gloss black top coat
These are going back on to the engine pictured here. While I LOVE the raw aluminum look it gets dirty easily and is then hard to clean. My powder coating guys blasted them clean and then tumbled them in their ceramic coat polishing tank to close up the grain a bit. After that they got a coat of satin clear to make them easy to wipe down.
Those look great!
Thanks! I’m going to set them in place today to grab a couple of pics to show Shaun at Street or Track (engines PO) what it looks like all cleaned up. I showed him the valve cover last week when I was at his shop looking at his stunning 1970 Mustang.
Finally was able to get back on to working on the car. Holidays and family medical issues with my aging parents left me with less time than I thought I might have.
When I pulled the Blue Thunder valve covers off the engine above I noticed that the baffles were flat plates bolted to the cover. These needed to be removed prior to coating as I mentioned above. I wanted to avoid thread locking compound due to fear of lost fasteners so I decided to safety wire them in place. McMaster had the correct 6/32 stainless steel SHCS pre-drilled for wire and I had both the wire and pliers already on-hand for motorcycle projects.
I want to verify fitment with the baffles in place prior to wiring as I neglected to take pre-disassembly photos.
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