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Mail From: James Kurien <(email redacted)>


I finally got through what has turned out to be the most time-consuming
part of installing the GT-40 long block into my '79 Mustang: painting
the engine compartment. It turned out to require a lot less skill than
I figured. Here's a report if anyone's interested:

After removing my old engine creeping elegance (as Dave W. calls it) struck,
and I decided to paint my slightly rusty engine compartment and front
frame area.

I disconnected the wiring harnesses from the spark box, starter relay, etc
so they were free up to the point when they entered the fire wall. There's
a ton of small crap to remove (hood latch, battery tray, wiper motor) but I
would guess stripping everything I removed only took an hour or two. I did
leave the brake system, steering gear, PS rack, and odo cable.

Next came the cleaning. Maybe there's a smarter way to do this, but this was
a gold plated bitch compared to the rest of the job. I had already used 4 or
5 cans of engine degreaser, and I used a few more, but in a lot of places the
grease was just too thick. A wire brush worked pretty well for thick grease and
misapplied undercoating but the sheet metal has a ton of nooks and crannies
which were filled with grease. I went with softscrub and a scrubbing pad on those.
I would guess about 7 wash cycles got the oil/sand/salt mixture out of everywhere.

A $9 HP Books masterpiece on painting and bodywork listed all the supplies
I would need from the paint store. Paint comes in parts, so I got a leftover
quart of paint in about the right shade for only $10, and a quart of reducer
that gets mixed in for a few bucks. A hardening agent was available, but
the shop didn't recommend it, and it was $32 a pint. A gallon of incredibly
obnoxious oil/wax remover was about $7. The store suggested I use a paper
mask with this stuff, but the paper mask package suggested that might be
fatal. $23 for a real respirator at a hardware store was better than
tempting Darwin.

I cleaned the surface to be painted with the wax remover, which also disintegrated
my rubber gloves. I wore the respirator just in case. Cleaning before sanding keeps
the wax/dirt from getting ground into the paint BTW. I next applied nutra-rust and
primer to some rust spots, then wet sanded everything with 320 grit
paper and rinsed.
You were supposed to do another cleaning, but I blew it off.

I masked everything that was left in the engine compartment, and since the fenders
and nose were off, I masked the tires and struts too. I masked they wiring
harnesses by curling them up into plastic bags, which I sealed with tape, and
putting them on the masked off windshield. I also masked the PS rack, MC
and steering shaft with plastic bags. It was a little bogus, but worked.

I bought a $40 paint gun, borrowed a slightly underpowered 1.5hp compressor,
strained and mixed my paint and reducer, and off I went. The red mist came
because I couldn't limit the compressor to 70lbs, so at first I was getting
paint everywhere. I practiced on cardboard to get under control.

I started on the outside of the engine compartment (where the fenders will go)
and made a bunch of sags. By the time I had those done, I was doing OK. I
put 4 coats over the entire car forward of the door/windshield line in about
an hour, since the paint mfr recommended no waiting between coats. The compressor
conveniently reset the house's circuit breaker about every coat, which gave me
a small break to inspect the work. I also moved the masked off brake lines
between coats so I would make sure I got good coverage.

Once I was done painting, I took off my respirator, which was probably a mistake.
Just being around the drying paint, even though it was outdoors, gave me a
pretty good headache. I did end up missing a few spots either because of my
masking or I couldn't get the gun at the right angle. Luckily, I new the mfr
code for the paint I had, so I got a can of touch up paint and hit the bare
spots.

Overall, I was really impressed with the results. The gloss is really high,
and the finish seems pretty tough. The nutra-rust and wire brush took out
a bunch of surface rust from the fender area and the strut towers, and my
previous experience with nutra-rust leads me to believe it won't be back.

I did get paint on the springs, and part of the K-member remains unpainted,
but I don' really care since neither was rusting or very visible. A few spots
didn't gloss up that well and if you get within 1' you can see about 20% of
it has orange peel, probably caused by the incorrect pressure and not
adjusting the gun right. In short, it looks like the outside of an 88 Mustang

Seriously it seems well protected and looks great, for
an engine compartment. The pain in the butt was definitely worth the
results and the experience to be applied on the outside paint later.

Jim K



PS Someone asked why ford stopped painting engines. After
my engine compartment turned out gloss blood red, I figure the
bright ford blue engine is going to nauseate people.