Painting Engine Parts

My case/sump have been freshly overhauled and alodined. I'd like to get them painted prior to assembly. I'm planning on masking unpainted areas and using some high temp engine enamel.

What sort of prep work needs to be done? I was planning on washing the cases with plain water and scrubbing them down with something like a toilet brush. Will that remove the alodine?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Also, I need a small amount of alodine to do pushrod shrouds and other small parts. Does anyone have a good supplier where small amounts can be purchased on the cheap?

My choices . . .

Andy, you largely already know what I've done.

Simple scrubbing with a plastic brush will not remove alodine, but you may see a reduction in the yellow color. The hexchrome oxidation layer is still in force.

NEW pushrod shrouds from Lyc are bare alum. Paint'em - off the engine. New intake tubes are painted from Lycoming, a nice metallic silver.

For everybody else, I painted the assembled engine, MINUS pushrod tubes and intake tubes (and mag and carb), which I painted off-engine. I masked off the cylinders at the start of the fins, which were factory new lycoming, which were already painted. I have a nice two-tone grey to the engine. It actually looks nice.

I'll stand by my process: assemble, mask and paint. That way the studs and nuts - as well as the things that you will mask that won't be covered up (portions of cyl pads, for example) get covered. An hour to mask, and hour to paint, and 20 min to unmask.

Aluminum foil is some of the best masking material.

Rick 90432

what do you paint the engine with?

Rick - what kind of paint did you use? When I put the engine heater on the Skipper I used Rattle Can high temp paint from Autozone (forget the brand name). Lots of color choices (Ford blue anyone), so I picked a nice greay and there was a matching high temp rattle can primer.

Oh, the trouble i'm going to get in . . .

I used . . . . wait for it . . . . Rustolium rattle cans, med grey. Right from the Aviation isle at Lowes.

I had prev exp with this on 300F apps, and since I didn't need to paint the heads/cyls, I went with it. A light coat does the trick.

Time will tell.

Rick