o.k i hope you are all sitting down. good ....let us begin.
i am starting to rebuild a 2.0 engine. those of you who know me know that this is like teaching a monkey to fly the space shuttle. so i hope you are all up tp the task.
firstly i want to do the important stuff, so am i am gonna repaint the tins and the fan housing (this way, if it never runs it'll look good)
cleaned them up, rubbed them down with denatured alcholol, light sanding and am ready to prime. gonna use duplicolor primer and paint.
have heard that i should bake them ( have big ovens here, may make my next lasagna taste like a 914,but i'll live with that) but the real question is what colors, high gloss or matte, plaid or stripes, lets go guys give me your ideas, show pics of whats already been done (go easy on the photoshop i believe everythig i see)
o.k this is gonna be fun andwhen it's over we will have a new 2.0 we can be proud of...at least i will

p.s. my money is on the monkey

If you've got an oven that's large enough to bake your tin, then you really should consider powder coating instead of painting. I painted mine and despite all the preparation and primer it really hasn't held up. Those who have done powder coating have had great results and great longevity on the treatment.

not real clear on how to powder coat. thoght it had to be sent to a shop. what kind of equptment do i need?

I've never done it, but there are several on this board who have. I've seen it demonstrated on those hot-rod shows on SpeedTV and it doesn't look difficult. It's the baking that is the hardest because you have to have a large enough oven. Perhaps a search here for "powder coat" will yield some info?

The tin was powder coated from the factory. The paint in a spray can (duplicolor) will not last very long. Year tops. BTDT. About 8 years ago I stripped all powder coating off of all tin (MAJOR pain in the ass) . Primered, and painted with single stage enamel mixed with hardener. Looked awesome for about five years, but the heat has now gotten to it and it doesn't look so great any more. Kinda dull just like 20 uear old tin. Powder coat it!

looked up powder coating on the net, lots of special equiptment, guns, ovens, solvent. any one know a shop near nyc that can do this? problem in ny is all we have is lawyers, stockbrokers and doctors. all the good tech guys are on the west coast.

Factory tin was baked on enamel paint, not powder coating.
Powder coating is the simplest way to replicate the correct look.

Go to www.eastwood.com and look for the powdercoating kit...its a simple small gun.

most of us will just find a local powder coating shop and pay them to clean, sandblast, and powdercoat the tin. Its alot easier, and you need to concentrate on rebuilding the motor.

If you have to, rattle can paint works fine, get high temp stain black.
If you are careful about spilling fuel, it will last.

Rich

checked out eastwood. system is $100.00 but you need an electric oven. mine are all gas. probably do the tins with spray but will definately p/u that system this winter to do my rims. find a cheap used elec iven that will fit em.

Click to view attachmentSears sells a neat powder coating gun,, http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_0...00P?vName=Tools. I bought one an did all the tin of the engine that I rebuilt. Check my blog for some pictures. I you have an oven like a stove oven you can fit all your tin into the oven with no problems. I just finished up doing some pieces that I'm going to use on my next engine which I will start to build in the next to weeks. Powder coating is easy, the hard part if the prep work on the pieces that you want to coat.

Heres some pics of some pieces that I did this afternoon:

those are beautiful. did you use a gas oven?

Eastwood's was the one I saw demonstrated. I think it was on "My Classic Car". Of course on a show like that they make it look easy, but I think the better testimony is that StratPlayer has actually done it with a similar setup.

The benefit of using a shop is that they can strip and pre-treat with iron phosphate. It takes allot of time. It cost you a couple of hundred dollars, but by the time you spend stripping and getting powder everywhere trying to get these into an oven that if your only doing a set, it would be a wash. Best bet is to get a couple of guys that want it done and split the cost. One set may be $200, 2 sets $300, 3 sets $350, so if you can break it down enough, you can overcome the set up charge and not have to make a big mess.

Just my .02