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960 Painting/anodizing whiteblock

stiligFox

stiligFox

Part-time Tinkerer
Joined
Feb 25, 2015
Location
Austin, TX
I feel like this has been probably asked before, but I sometimes get jelly seeing all of the redblocks that get painted bright shiny red. Would it be possible to paint a whiteblock shiny white? I know aluminum is finicky with paint, and then there is the heat (mine gets quite hot).

Also what about painting the heat shield that goes over the exhaust manifold? I'm not sure what type of metal it is on the top, but it looks quite a bit corroded.

Cheers!
 
What would make it difficult? Its all about decent prep-work that goes into completing a paint job. Get some decent gloss white engine enamel, steam clean the crap out of the block(no residue whatsoever), hit it with a thin coat of etching primer and have at it. As for the exhaust manifold/heatshield, Stove Bright does great. I painted both my manifolds with the silver Stove Bright. It looks like brand new part.
 
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Thanks guys! I’ll probably do it when I pull the engine when we repaint everything. But I might do the heatshield now!

I just figured that maybe aluminum may not take paint as well as iron, guess I was wrong :)
 
Anodizing isn't really an option unless it's new aluminum, or completely resurfaced and all steel studs or other metal fasteners bushings ect removed.

Best to paint but you'll need to use this.

th
 
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Steam clean isn't enough on older whiteblocks. They usually get chalky corrosion on them. A good glass bead blast is all it'll need to look brand new.
 
On your heat shield VHT make an exhaust manifold/header ceramic paint in rattle cans. I have used it in many of the restorations that I have done and it holds up very well on the manifold that will see much more heat.
 
My Grandad was a world expert on Anodizing and I remember my dad telling me about him showing him what happens when you try and anodize a casting. The catsing pretty much just melted and nothing was left of it.

Paintng is the only option and as already suggested blast the block to get it fully clean and use a etch primer
 
classicswede said:
My Grandad was a world expert on Anodizing and I remember my dad telling me about him showing him what happens when you try and anodize a casting. The catsing pretty much just melted and nothing was left of it.

Paintng is the only option and as already suggested blast the block to get it fully clean and use a etch primer
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I've anodized a 240 alternator mount before. It's cast. Didn't really look all that great, but it didn't dissolve at all.
 
Tuff240 said:
I've anodized a 240 alternator mount before. It's cast. Didn't really look all that great, but it didn't dissolve at all.
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It is down to exactly what is alloyed into it but castings are not going to give a good finish if the makeup is suitable to anodize. I would ask the Father of anodizing for a full explination of the whys etc but he is no longer with us. When I have read the technical books he wrote I might be able to give the reasons myself.
 
t8fanning said:
Got pics of it? I've tried to get a valve cover anodized, but the place says they can't do cast aluminum.
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Somewhere I think. I might still have the part also. I'll try to find it.

classicswede said:
It is down to exactly what is alloyed into it but castings are not going to give a good finish if the makeup is suitable to anodize. I would ask the Father of anodizing for a full explination of the whys etc but he is no longer with us. When I have read the technical books he wrote I might be able to give the reasons myself.
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Yes, it just depends on the metal content. I had a friend that ran a high end anodizing company in the bay area. He sponsored my RC car and anodized all the parts for me.
They mostly did paintball gun stuff. They did some really cool designs within the anodizing. Lightning and multi layered/colored type stuff. He was going to doing orange with white racing stripes on a few pieces for me, but we never got that far. We did try a bunch of different things over the years with spare parts I had laying around though. I even had a cracked Fuchs wheel that we cut into 4 pieces and tried different types of anodizing on (back when I was into 911's).
 
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