Temadur For The Floors

The new floor panels only had a thin layer of rust prevention paint and had to be given some better protection before longer drives or rain. My friend recommended that I use Tikkurila Temadur. He had painted the floors on his Mustang with it and it had proven really durable. It was pretty expensive but I bought a small can of it and its hardener.

After mixing the two components in 1:5 ratio, I brushed the paint on. The smell is pretty bad so using some breathing protection is a must. I was rewarded with a really nice and hard looking surface.

For now I just painted the passenger side but I think I'll paint the whole floor after the driver footwell has been replaced. I must also spray some undercoating to the bottom of the car later.

Exhaust Manifolds

To keep a stock look in the engine bay, I decided to use the original exhaust manifolds. They were restrictive as hell but would suffice for now. At least I had an easy part to upgrade later. Unfortunately the manifolds were really rusty and ugly.

To clean the rust I decided to dip them in acid. But not the strong stuff, just citric acid. I bough some in crystallised form and mixed it with water in about 100g of acid per litre of water. Then I left the manifolds to soak for 24 hours. Almost all of the rust had disappeared and the rest I wire brushed off.

To really make them shine I also decided to paint them. I bough some Tikkurila Termal paint and brushed it on. It was almost like water and small droplets flied everywhere. If using it, protect all surfaces carefully. The results were pretty nice at least.

The paint would only cure completely when heated to about 200 degrees celsius (390 fahrenheit) but running the engine should take care of that. The old bolts were also pretty rusty so I bought new ones. Attaching the manifolds to the engine was pretty simple but I had to shorten one bolt. The shock tower was so close to the passenger side manifold that the long bolt just would not fit.

As I had suspected the transmission support caused problems when attaching the exhaust pipe to the manifold. The pipe contacted the support and would not align with the manifold. In the end I had to create a dent to the pipe to attach them together. I'll probably have to replace the front section of the pipe later so they wont rub against each other.

Painting The Engine Bay

With the engine pretty much ready to be installed in the car, it was time to prepare the engine bay. In the beginning it was a pretty sorry looking thing. Dirty:

The lip below the windscreen had some small rust holes and was ugly:

And there were some welds in the corners that I wanted to remove:

After cleaning the surface rust away with wire brush I grinded the welds a bit.

Couldn't really get them perfect but at least they weren't so eye catching as before. The small pinholes in the center were a bit more problematic. As welding wasn't really an option, I decided to fill the holes with lead. I bought a bar of it, paste and a wooden paddle and got to work. This was my first time working with lead but it proved surprisingly easy.

I cleaned the metal as good as I could and spread the paste on it. Next I used a torch to heat the area until the paste turned bright. I cleaned everything again and dug out the lead. It melted easily with the torch and I dropped a few pieces on the holes. While keeping it soft with heat, I spread it around with the paddle. After repeating a couple of times, the holes were filled.

I filed the lead smooth until it was good enough for me. Then it was time to prevent the rust from spreading any more. I applied some rust stopped to the lip.

Hopefully it was enough so the paint wont start bubbling later. Finally I applied some filler to the worst places to smooth them out more. Then it was time to attack the dirt. The engine bay had had almost 50 years to gather grime, oil, grease and other nasty stuff and I had to get all of it out before paint. Power washer wasn't an option in my garage or yard so manual cleaning was the only way to go.

I ended up spending many nights scraping, brushing and wiping every nook and cranny in the engine bay but finally it was spotless. That of course was not enough preparation for paint and I dug out my sanding paper and went through all surfaces with a few different grids. Some aching fingers later it was finally time to start spraying so I masked all surfaces I didn't want to paint.

I also cleaned the surroundings in the garage to minimize the amount of dust in the air. Naturally my area was not suitable for any kind of serious painting but was enough for the engine bay. The air would be filled with paint so I wore a protective suit.

The paint I chose as primer was grey Color Matic 1K Epoxy.

First layer that I sprayed was really light just to bring out any uneven surfaces and to see how the paint reacted with the old layers. The light gray color was perfect for seeing the places I needed to sand further.

Most of the paint spread out evenly but there were some places where the new primer reacted with the old pain.

Getting rid of all the wrinkles proved pretty difficult. I tried sanding the areas back to bare metal, let the paint dry for a week between layers, cleaned everything many times, put up light and heavy layers but always some wrinkles would pop up. Finally I had had enough and decided to try Motox paint from Motonet that had worked really well before. I used matte black this time as they grey color had already done its job.

The new, cheap paint went on perfectly without any reactions with the old layers. I guess I should have used the old and tested materials immediately instead of fighting with the new, more expensive paint for weeks. After a few layers of primer, I was finally ready for the actual top coat. For that I used VHT satin black. It went on perfectly and after three layers I had a really nice looking engine bay.

Engine Assembly: Paint And Core Plugs

Time to give the block a small facelift. Before paint I noticed that there was some loose rust and dirt still on the block so I cleaned it with a wire brush. This naturally created a lot of dust that found its way everywhere and would have to be cleaned later. I did not install the core plugs before paint so cleaning would be easier.

Next I masked all the gasket surfaces with some tape and started brushing. I was rewarded with a pretty nice looking block but some metal was still showing through. After letting the paint to dry for 24 hours, I applied another layer and let it dry again. Then I removed the tapes and cleaned the edges.

After paint I poured some water through the coolant passages to get the dirt out. Then I could install the core plugs. I applied some Hylomar sealant to both surfaces and let it dry for few minutes. By placing a suitable sized socket on the plug, it was easy to hammer them in. I will add some pain on the plugs later.