| Engine Compartment Detailing
- Project 11.99 |
Before: The engine compartment
in oru '67 Mustang suffered from 25 years of crud buildup, plus
at least a half-dozen half-assed attempts at repainting it.
Look closely at the firewall, the blobs of seam sealer from
the factory did not help the appearance either. |
Stripping: Getting all
the ruberized paint off was a huge undertaking. Overall it took
roughly 30 hours and required aerosol paint remover (methylene
chloride), scrapers, and lots of drill operated wire cup brushes.
Yes a mask was worn at all times. Every square inch was taken
down to bare metal. Because the body was not being painted,
care was taken to mask everything off properly. The fender bolts
were removed and shims uses to lift the fenders slightly off
the engine compartment, in order to sand about 1/8" under
the fender to avoid a seam. |
Prepping: Several coats
of rust prohibitive primer were applied (spray can.) High spots
were sanded. |
Finished: A common mistake
is to paint the compartment with gloss or semi-gloss. Gloss
paints will not look correct, and they reflect light leaving
and odd shadow/shine effect Satin black is the best color to
reproduce the egg-shell paint of the 65-66 compartment. The
67 and up engine compartments used a different paint/coating
which went on thick, similar to an undercoat. This is hard to
find, and even harder to apply evenly. Satin black comes out
looking smooth and applies very easily on a clean and primered
surface. |
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