Ihope this isn't old news, I'm kinda newhere...I'm not new to paint work but I amfor painting theseair cooled engines..Can someone guide me on the correct way to prep &paint my engine? Like would the etch primer like veriprime from Dupont be good, maybe PPG, DP40 first?Or whats recomended forputting the wrinkle black on over the bare aluminum block and heads. I'll be putting on some miles so I don't want a quick fix.Also, what paintcompanywouldmake the wrinkle paint for our engines. Thank You.

 

Guess everyone else here is like me. I started off touching up my wrinkle black engine with high temp bbq grill paint, and as more and more paint came off my '92's engine I switched to masking off large areas and spraying with flat black engine paint out of a rattle can. Of course, I continually have to repaint, but there's no way I'm going to tear the engine apart just to paint it. But if I was going to do it right, I would take it to a pro and have the parts powdercoated. That will last a lot longer than any paint.

 

Yea, I know the powder coat is the best way to go, but my local powder coater says I have to blow the enginecompletely apart. Why? Is it because of the heat to powder coat? I've painted lots of street rod engines with aluminum blocks and heads when I was in the business, and run one new enginein that got up to 250 degrees before I finally got some water on the radiator. didn't seem to hurt the engine but it did bubble the paint on the oil pan. Question is will the block run cooler that that on a Harley and how hot will the heads get. Or if the block runs cool enough to hold paint,maybe put the stove paint just on the heads? Or is paint a bad idea anyway because itmakes the engine run hotterAnybody?

 

Make it easy on yourself! Clean the engine parts you want to wrinkle. Let 'em dry. Mask off whatever you don't wanna paint. Spray bomb them with some VHT, or whatever wrinkle brand tickles your fancy. Lay on about three fairly heavy coats. Aim a couple of heat lamps, or those cheap halogen work lamps, at the engine. Watch it wrinkle!

I'm a cheap buzzard. Ridin' is what's important. Unless you're fixin' to tear things down to a stand-still, this is the easiest way to go. I generally do about 20,000 + miles a year. The spray bomb wrinkle job lasts for the year, and all I do is hit a few licks for the next year.

Oh yeah, you can use the wrinkle on the jugs, heads, and pretty much everything else except the pipes!

 

Any engine paint is supposed to withstand more heat than your engine will ever make. The problem is the difficulty in getting the parts to be painted COMPLETELY clean when they're still attached to the rest of the bike.
And I've seen several different studies that show a black painted engine runs cooler that plain, polished or chrome surfaces. Black surfaces shed more heat.

 

Thanks guys, I do have one advantage, my engine and trans is out of the bike, Frame is getting powder coated and I'm repainting all the tins. I'm doing all the chrome thats needed and mechanics. I was worried about the heat the engine gets up to for painting. Itsounds like it runs cooler than I thought.

 

Update,,,I had a talk with some highranking PPG paint guys. So heres the scoop. They told me there DPLF epoxy primers will work fine and withstand temps up to 300 degrees and will stick very good over our aluminum engines. Also on the heads. They make it in black along with some other colors, and they recommended A thin coat of DCC paint over the DPLF epoxy primer of your favorite color. I haven't run my bike yet, but it does spray on very nice...Nope, no wrinkle paint was recomended.

 

300 degrees sounds a little soft to me. Any engine paint I've seen always claims at least a 500 degree threshold.

 

Yes your right, 500 degree's on engine paint.
But what I'm talking about is an epoxy base primer to lay down under the paint for maximum adhesion to the bare aluminum. I have used Veriprime by DuPont, Etchloc by Sherwin Williams, also.they are an acid etch primer and worked well onmy base coatclear coatpaint's on water cooled engines. This all started because I didn't know how hot Harley engine's ran at the time. I should havefigured it outby how hot the oil was getting up to.. duh!..........

 

The reason I question the primer is that oil temps measured in the tank are quite a bit cooler than the temps in other areas, like the combustion chamber, where temps routinely are near 300 degrees. No matter whether it's primer or whatever, if you're painting or coating the cylinders and heads with it, I think it needs to be good up to 500 degrees or more.