DIY engine bay respray

[commo69]

has anyone resprayed their engine bay themselves??? if u have add pics and how u did it cheers

[Wrayza]

A mate of mine has done it with success and I'm about to do the same.

Take the old paint back a bit, panel beat and fill any dents or unused holes from the factory. Hit the lot with wax and grease remover and a tack rag, then use a high build primer putty, light sand and another coat if needed. Give it a final clean with wax and grease remover and tack rag and lay on the colour, Autobarn will mix up your colour in a pressure pack for about $27 I think. Lay down 2 coats of colour if needed, then put on a couple of coats of clear or more untill your happy, then you can even give it a light cut and polish.

Depending on the time you spend you can make it very acceptable for an engine bay.

[viper1431]

http://members.iinet.net.au/~jkaufman/enbay.jpg
I took out the easy bits like the overflow bottle and battery ect, pulled the wiring out of the way and taped them to the fender and put a plastic sheet over the engine.
The only thing that suffered unwanted painting was the brake booster and master cylinder.
You can see on the bonnet what the old color was.

To prep it i got a cheap high pressure cleaner and lots of degreaser, it got most of the grease and crap off, any other bits i just used a brush or rag.
edit: should add i just did a quick/cheap job so it matched the rest of the car, the post above shows the best way to do it if you want a better result.

[commo69]

did u use a spray gun when u did it?? also i have some left over residue i think from the leaking brake master cylinder. it has become corrosive wats the best way of get it off?

[commo69]

does anyone no how to remove the brake residue stuff?

[DANNY8]

Here's some pics from when I did mine:





Primed


Painted


Clear coat now on.



To get rid of the brake residue crap I just got the wire wheel out onto the drill and took the area back to metal. I started doing mine at home, which is where the yellow primer is, then I took it into work for 2 days to finish it.

[commo69]

that looks awsome sorry im a bit of a downer when it comes to paint but what primer did u use and where did u get your paint??

[89vncommy]

The orange stuff looks like tetrosyl spray putty... It is a thiker type primer.. Then just looks like a normal primer or a base coat in white... Then the black ...

The spray putty is good if you have little nicks and stuff out of the paint and metal ... Gives a really clean finish if you use it ...

[DANNY8]

Yeah the stuff I started off with was a high build spray putty which I bought in a pressure back from Repco.

The other primer I'm not sure about coz the painter mixed it up for me and I just sprayed it. All I know is both Acrylic and 2pak can be used with it. The black paint is acrylic. It's suppose to be gloss but it was my first time at spraying (other then the primer) and I sorta f**ked it up coz it went a bit rough, and I actually missed a few spots (which wont be noticiable when everythings back 2gether)...and the clear is a 2pak clear, which the painter sprayed for me. He just said he'll make it shine, so I left him to work his magic, and it seemed to work alright. Apparently the 2pak clear over an acrylic base can really stuff things up coz the 2pak dries hard while the acrylic doesn't, so a film of solvents is in between the base and the clear, and the clear flakes off.....altho with that said it hasn't happened to mine yet, and my painter said it should be fine for under the bonnet. (I know of another pro that sprayed 2pak clear over acrylic base, he did a whole car and it worked out alright.)

This is still really a DIY job, coz I ain't no pro (I just do the **** jobs like empty bins and wash cars haha)...I prepped it all myself, and painted it all except the clear...and it was just done in the shed, didn't worry bout putting it in the oven coz there was already a car in there at the time.

It didn't cost me stuff all either. Prepping it just took a few bits of sandpaper to go over it all, and the wire wheel to go over harsh bits, a bit of prepsol, a tack cloth, a bit of masking tape and some paper, the primer I didn't pay for coz the painter just mixed up some for me instead of using mine, altho mine was about $20 for 1 litre I think, same as the acrylic gloss black, and the clear we didn't use mine either, we used his.

So overall u should see change out of $100 to do ya engine bay urself.

I now spray paint with my air compressor at home, and that does a good job. It's just a cheap-ass $99 GMC special, altho the one I'm using now is about my 4th or 5th coz they keep stuffng up. They've now sent me out a bigger one and it's petrol (this ones worth a few hundred dollars haha) and it didn't cost anything coz of their 2 year replacement warranty. My first one the stopped working I gave to my bro coz they didn't worry bout taking it back, just gave me a new one...and my bro put a new head gasket in it and it's been working ever siince. The next one had an electrical fault so just pulled that one to bits to see how they worked. Then the next had a crack in the hose...so I got another one which is the bigger one. The previous one I fixed tho using parts from the one b4 that, so out of that $99 for the first one, my bro has an air compressor, I have one, and I also have the bigger one, and also got a parts one which is just sitting doing nothing. SO I've really got my money's worth out of them. But yeah they seem to do ok with a water trap, and as long as they dont break down haha. I also only got a cheap GMC spray gun ($60 in a set of other stuff), and that seems to do ok.