Painting engine cases?

forgive me i dont know the actual name, the cover where the dipstick is, has started to bubble and rust.

Whats the best way to sort this, can i just unscrew the allen keys, remove it and respray it, or does it need to go to a proffessional?

that depends if your after a professional job or not mate,

[rictus01]

Originally Posted by sv_rory

that depends if your after a professional job or not mate,

no professional only means you've paid for it, the quality of the work is far from standardized, but that's besides the point.

the cover you're talking about is the clutch cover (the SV doesn't have a dipstick, but the oil filler cap is there), and you must have a pointy as the curvy one is plastic, on the premise both of those assumptions are correct....

to remove the pointy cover the whole side needs to come off as the clutch cover is integrated, this will mean the cooling system needs to be drained and the water pump removed before the main cover will come away, once you have it off the "rust" issue can be addressed, as the casing is alloy it isn't actually rust as that commonly refers to the iron content in steel and is an orange colour, on alloy it's called "oxidation"; much the same thing but a white colour, all the loose stuff will need removing and the edges of any paint will need smoothing down with wet & dry paper by varyingly fine grades, as you'll be painting on two different surfaces ( the bare metal and the painted finish, you'll need to paint it with primer first and then top coat (your colour of choice) and then a lacquer if you choose, the finish is all down to the preparation, the more effort you put in the better it will look.

Generally normal car paint will do as although the casing gets hot it doesn't go beyond the bounds of what the paint will tolerate, but if you want to be sure use a heat resistant paint, halfords do a black or grey exhaust paint, which needs no primer and works well on engine cases I've found.

HTH

Cheers Mark.

B&Q BBQ paint is supposed to be good - i`ve used it on a project i`m building but haven`t started the engine yet, it says it`s good up to 600c. It`s satin black btw..