I was looking at a site today and it seemed that everyone had painted their engines and trannys. With paint, it has a good chance of peeling or chipping. With powder coating, its very hard to chip or peel it so my question is, is it possible to powder coat your motor, head, and tranny? Can you do it with all the internals still intact?
can’t do it with internals intact. Things like brass plugs and seals can’t stand the heat… since these things are relatively ‘heavy’, they need longer to reach critical temperature.
Also, you’d have huge issues with the oils outgassing while being heated…which will cause problems as well. They need to be clean/oil free.
So it is entirely possible to have an engine and head powdercoated if they are “bare”? Would it effect the assembly of the motor? I would imagine that you would need to take the whole trany appart to get to the housing in order to powdercoat that correct?
you would want to make sure there is not powdercoat on any mating surfaces including bolt holes, etc…
people get their blocks/transmissions/heads PC’d all the time. They just need to be stripped down to bare block, bare transmission housing, and bare head. No problem with assembly, but they need to be appropriately masked.
I’ve painted engines before and never had a problem with chipping or peeling. It’s all in the prep work though. I usually degrease, then hit it with a wire wheel on a drill, then wipe it down with paint thinner and spray it.
How hot can the PC withstand before it fails?
They have powdercoating that an withstand huge temperatures now. I know of a few places that have powdercoating that you can coat headders and stuff with now.
As for powdercoating the block, the idea is good, but I think you will have problems with outgassing, and getting 100% of the oil and crap out of the block. If you were to dip the whole block in a degreaser, you might be able to get all of it out, but, you will probably still get some outgassing. You can get some really good results with a rattle can and time. Rattle can’s can provide good results because the blocks are so small, relative to a whole fender for instance, and are textured so you can get good results. I like the idea, but I think you have reached the point of diminishing returns from powdercoating vs. rattle can and time.
i would just be concerned that the heat to cure the powdercoating doesnt warp or crack anything. How hot do you need to get it?
I’m going to be powdercoating my T56 case along with a TON of other parts, but I’ll just be preping and painting my block and heads with regular automotive paint.
If you prep the block correctly, prime with a good self-etching primer, and paint with a good quality paint, it’ll last for years on years. I’ve got engine blocks that I painted over 15 years ago that still look like the day I painted them underneath the minor oil film from minor leaks.
I’m doing the Tranny Case just because the parts are small enough to fit into my PC oven (Just a ordinary gas oven I got for free ;)) , and I want to play around with the silver base, semi-transparent colors, and I figured a candy red T-56 would be cool under the car; ; not like anyone is going to see it but even still.