I am starting to seriously consider doing my engine bay clean up myself...just cheaper and will get it done faster.

Only question I have is what is the best way to clean up and then paint the engine bay?

Currently mine is black with Candy Apple Red on the outside of the car. I have seen people paint the bay to match the rest of the car but I would just as soon leave mine black.

What sort of paint would I need to get to paint the bay after welding in a couple of patches and things of that nature?

Would something like the Bill Hersch chassis paint work? I don't have a paint gun....

 

A wire wheel and an angle grinder do a pretty good job of removing paint/rust. You'd probably want to clean it with simple green first, though.

As far as paint, rattle cans of semi-gloss should do just fine. If you want it to stick, clean the metal really well, rub it down with phosphoric acid, primer it, sand the primer if you want a shiny finish, then spray the black. It'll probably look better than factory, even if you have a couple runs.

 

Thanks for the advice.

One thing I am working on is finding a mig welder first though. Need to replace a piece of the fender apron and the battery tray also. The tray doesn't require welding but the fender apron sure will.

I did a good deal of the welding on the floor pans at my buddy's shop after he showed me how to do it and I am taking a 3 hour welding class with a car club group at the community college this Saturday.

Way I see it....I can pay my friend $500 to detail the engine bay or spend $500 on a middle of the road welder to get the bay done then have the welder for future projects both car related and other things. I like my friend that runs the shop but as they say, "friends are friends and business is business"

 

I painted mine with Eastwood Chassis Black. It is just the right shine between flat and semi-gloss. I used my spray gun, but their spray cans work just as well once you prep it as Tad suggests.

 

I just thought of a probably really stupid question but where do you go about getting some phosphoric acid?

It really sounds overall like a pretty low cost deal. I know that for the fender apron the metal itself is cheap, Krylon semi-gloss is really cheap, etc. On my exhaust when I cleaned it up instead of using my grinder I used a wire wheel attached to my drill and that worked pretty well, not to mention it didn't make near as much noise, LOL!

 

A drill will work, but will probably take a lot longer. There's a lot of surface area in the engine bay.

You should be able to pick up phosphoric acid at any good hardware store. Paint supply stores may have it as well. You don't really need that much, but usually you can get it in gallons.

 

Metal-Ready also has a phosphoric acid base. I plan on using POR-15 Semi-Gloss Black for my engine bay and chassis. God help you if you need to strip it off.

 

I personally would use a catalyzed paint. Many of the fluids used in the engine compartment will eat right through non-catalyzed paints.

 

I painted mine with an Eastwood spray can a couple years ago and it is holding up fine so far. While you are in there, are you going to weld up all the unneeded holes? Post before/after photos, of course.

 

Self etching primer consists of phosphoric acid and zinc, so that will kill 2 birds.