Engine bay detailing.
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So what all do you suggest for detailing and restoring some of the looks of the engine bay?
My valve cover paint is pealing so I'm going to strip it and prime and paint it(flat white), and plan on removing my heat shield and heat plating undernearth and doing a wrap and reflective on the oil pan.
Any other little details you all would suggest? I have no interest in painting any of the plastic, it will stay black, I'll clean it up a bit but that's it.
Possibly new hoses, which is both look and reliability.
>>13830040
bomb with de-greaser
>>13830099
Sounds about right, What all should I cover?
>battery
>alternator
>filter housing
>belts
Anything else?
>>13830115
sensor connections, remove the battery
>>13830142
Cool, thanks.
replacing fluid resevoirs will help a ton
>>13830320
clothing stain remover works well, so does brake fluid. soak them for a few days, jam a rag in there and twist, repeat a few times till its clean.
Satin black paint is great for keeping a stock look, when mixed with other bright colours it draws the attention away from them easily.
pic related; did a brief tidy up of my engine bay (years ago, my first car). Grease and grime was removed with heavy duty kitchen cleaner and degreaser scrubbed with a bunch of cheap stiff bristle brushes from the hardware store.
Then i cleaned it all down using a variety of rags. To avoid causing problems i didnt spray the engine directly with the hose, a wet rag is often enough after the initial scrub.
any rusty bits were removed, attacked with a wire brush drill attachment and painted. battery terminals were just replaced with new ones.
(note most oven cleaners and bleaches will dissolve aluminium, a brief squirt is okay but do not let them soak and especially do not use them on gasket surfaces.)
some other tips: you dont need to take something back to bare metal to paint it half way decently, so long as there are no harsh edges to the original paint, its not peeling and its no longer shiny you can spray it fairly easily, after 2-3 coats its almost unnoticeable.
Degrease, Wash, wire wheel drill, wash, paint.
is a good way to clean suspension components (pic coming)
This was just the method from above.
Degreased, washed, wire wheeled, washed (left to dry) and painted with satin black.
i wasnt going for a concourse finish so i didnt actually disassemble anything, i masked up the calliper and disc and just sprayed the whole assembly as it was there in two coats. just takes a wipe with a wet rag on wash day to make it all look nice again and its very easy to touch up should i ever need to.
the paint on the tophat of the brake disc did not last long (as expected) if you were particularly fussy you could instead look at buying plated rotors (i think theyre zinc plated, but not 100% on that)
IIRC most modern rotors of decent brand are zinc plated.
you can see here how quickly the tophats lost their colour, i partially blame this to the wheels coming off just about every weekend and partially down to the satin black not being heat resistant.
i dont know how long the bare metal finish of the calipers would have lasted (not long i should imagine, hot things rust faster) since they were painted shortly afterwards.
as a last bit, brake caliper paint tends to be very thick, you need 3-4 very light coats on very clean calipers to get a good finish. you will also want to tape off any rubber and the calliper bleed nipple.
>>13830449
>>13830465
>>13830469
>>13830473
Thanks, This will be of a lot of use.
I just went out to look at the car and found a few things I'll need to take care of in the process, Also found out what was making my rattling noise, which is actually my heat shield, looks like part of it's busted.
>>13830478
once clean its fairly easy to keep clean with a just a dam rag once every couple of weeks.
The heatshield is good to clean and paint with a heatproof paint, it hides horrible cast manifolds, unless you have a fancy tubular manifold or you want to go with an exhaust wrap.
