Painting The Engine Block

At the beginning of July I picked my day and, early in the morning, took the block outside and gave it several good soaks and washes with Jizer - I used a paint brush to stipple the Jizer in everywhere. I hosed it down with a pressure washer and blew compressed air all over it - and especially through all the oil and coolant channels.

When it was all dry, and using a rag lightly soaked in engine oil, I wiped around the bushes of the camshaft (both ends and the one in the middle) and similarly pulled my oily rag through each tappet channel. Avoiding bushes I liberally applied Jenolite (Phosphoric acid) with a paintbrush - again stippling it in -  and then left it to dry. Dried Jenolite is removed by addding another wet layer, then wiping it all off with a rag. By the end of that day I had a clean, de-rusted engine block.

The next day I used panel wipe and a scrubbing brush to thoroughly degrease the engine. I masked-off the top of the block and other areas and sprayed the block up. I had searched long and hard to find a green paint colour that match that used on the engine block. It's different to the green used for LHM parts. it's more of an olive green? I thought I had found something fairly close in 'RAL 6020' ('Chrome Green')  and got a couple of cans of semi-gloss enamel made up.

The Personal Touch.....

When it actually came to applying it, I didn't feel it was the colour I was expecting. It wasn't quite dark enough. Whether this was because it was mixed wrong, or whether it was because it was being applied without an undercoat, I don't know. I had checked the colour at my paint mixers before I had it made up,  but I've just Googled it and, if you look at the variations in shade shown in 'images', it's perhaps not surprising that the colour I ended up with is not quite what I thought it would be - or expected. 

ANYWAY - it was done and was close enough. it was certainly much better than had been before and looked even better a couple of days later when I removed all the masking tape.

Repainted Engine Block - Ready for the Rebuild

I left the block to dry a good few weeks before I started work on it again. It would do no harm and I had other things to do.