Painting Engine Bay

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DartVadar

DartVadar

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After taking the motor out my dart and taking the battery tray off I noticed that over the years the battery acid really hasn't been to kind to the paint in the engine bay. It looks kinda bad in the pictures, but that is just surface rust after I washed it off, the metal is completely solid, the acid just stripped the paint. Besides that area the paint is pretty good. The rest of the car will need to be painted, but thats not for a while, and I dont know what colour.

Is there anyway I could paint that part of the engine bay and it actually be the same colour? I could paint that entire side as well, that may almost be easiest. Is there a way I could find a paint code? Its that root beer brown colour.
 

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Well, here's my 2 pennies. Decide what color you want the car, clean and paint the bay while the engine is out.

Of course deciding color is an obstacle in of itself. I have the same dilemma, while my engine is out (when I get ready to do the swap) I want to clean the bay up, smooth out the firewall and paint it.

Now if I could decide on a color. :banghead:
 
I was in this exact position. The paint under the battery tray was etched away by the battery acid, but the rest of the engine bay was in pretty decent shape. I was gonna just try and do the inner fender below the battery tray, but after discussing it with my body man, he told me I would later regret it if I didn't paint the entire bay while the engine was out. I'm glad I went with his recommendation, as now I am also changing the entire color of the car to this:
 

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Here is a "before" pic, unfortunately doesn't really show the sketchy part under the battery tray:
 

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Thats a good plan actually, probably better in the long run. Now just have to decide on the colour if I do paint the entire thing, thinking a dark blue colour. But it takes me months to decide on things, so ill be deciding forever on a colour!
 
Months to decide on much less important things lol, I wasn't planning on painting it for a few years, because I want to save up for it. But I can't imagine painting the engine pay is terribly expensive if I do all the prep work and simply get it sprayed (or I spray it myself)
 
You said you don't plan to paint 'for a few years'. So I guess you are planning to put the engine back in before that? If you can decide on a color you should go ahead and paint the bay now (assuming you don't plan to pull the block again). Is this a 'driver' paint job? As long as you are not going for show quality, you can probably shoot it yourself and do as good or better than the factory. If you have access to a compressor, you can get a HF gun and some single stage paint inexpensively and have it done.
If you do want to just paint the messed up area.... Your paint code is on the fender tag. Get a clear shot of that an we can figure it out. It's not cheep, but you can order just about any color in spray cans. What year are we looking at? I will say it is very close to my '75 color - T4 cinnamon poly. I found a rust oleum color ' espresso brown' that is very close but not metallic. I did spray correct color in my bay, but used the spray bombs for other areas like floor pans, behind dash etc.
 

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TCP global , single stage , cheap and easy .I have literally less than 200 bucks in this, including the spray gun. I also had them pack 2 spray cans of this blue , not cheap , and not near enough coverage to justify the cost. I highly recommend you get a compressor and spray it yourself. plus you can do the door jams and trunk area , put the car together and drive it while you work on getting the body done. that's my plan of attack. I would do the whole front suspension too while the engine is out. you will be glad you did.
 

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zkx14 said:
You said you don't plan to paint 'for a few years'. So I guess you are planning to put the engine back in before that? If you can decide on a color you should go ahead and paint the bay now (assuming you don't plan to pull the block again). Is this a 'driver' paint job? As long as you are not going for show quality, you can probably shoot it yourself and do as good or better than the factory. If you have access to a compressor, you can get a HF gun and some single stage paint inexpensively and have it done.
If you do want to just paint the messed up area.... Your paint code is on the fender tag. Get a clear shot of that an we can figure it out. It's not cheep, but you can order just about any color in spray cans. What year are we looking at? I will say it is very close to my '75 color - T4 cinnamon poly. I found a rust oleum color ' espresso brown' that is very close but not metallic. I did spray correct color in my bay, but used the spray bombs for other areas like floor pans, behind dash etc.
Click to expand...

Yes the engine is going to be back in pretty soon, but I can hold off a bit to paint to engine bay. I already took must of the things out of the engine bay, its just going to be alot of work to properly strip and prep the engine bay for the paint. And yes this car is completely a driver, the outside paint is all faded, but its a solid rust free car, so I have been and still want to be able to drive it. I kinda like how it looks on the outside too. I do have a compressor as well so I could paint it myself after getting the paint and a gun.

Ill get the fender tag, but I think the car has been re-painted once before, so I am not sure how accurate that is, but if am am going to paint it I may as well paint it the colour that I will eventually paint it. The car is a 73 dart swinger, I think its the bronze metallic colour, but I will check.
 
73AbodEE said:
TCP global , single stage , cheap and easy .I have literally less than 200 bucks in this, including the spray gun. I also had them pack 2 spray cans of this blue , not cheap , and not near enough coverage to justify the cost. I highly recommend you get a compressor and spray it yourself. plus you can do the door jams and trunk area , put the car together and drive it while you work on getting the body done. that's my plan of attack. I would do the whole front suspension too while the engine is out. you will be glad you did.
Click to expand...


Ill look into those guys, because that doesnt seem like it would be too much money to paint it. Single stage is what the factory paint was too?
 
Single stage is what the factory paint is.
 
on a side note , I like to neutralize the battery acid before paint, Baking soda/water and a scotch bright , scrub brush, blow dry etc.
 
I did neutralize the acid, and checked with this spray that changes colour when acid is present (pretty neat!) But it just flash rusted instantly. And there is no rush to get it done really, just dont want it to snowball and next think I know I have a restored car lol.
 
73AbodEE said:
TCP global , single stage , cheap and easy .I have literally less than 200 bucks in this, including the spray gun. I also had them pack 2 spray cans of this blue , not cheap , and not near enough coverage to justify the cost. I highly recommend you get a compressor and spray it yourself. plus you can do the door jams and trunk area , put the car together and drive it while you work on getting the body done. that's my plan of attack. I would do the whole front suspension too while the engine is out. you will be glad you did.
Click to expand...

Me too. TCP Global single stage AU



 
Wow the before and after pictures are pretty substantial! Looks really good. I may paint the entire engine bay, easiest while the motor is out anyways.
 
If you use TCP make sure you order enough all at once, the shipping rates can add up quick especially with hazardous materials.
 
I also had the same problem with battery acid. It looked like a battery exploded at some point in time.
I wound up sanding the entire engine compartment down to bare metal. Believe it or not I found a shade of yellow Rustolium that was a 95% match to the car. I really lucked out.

Ted
 

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