Engine Painting

July 9th was a pretty exciting day. This was the day I got to see my engine back from the engine shop. Ray and I got the engine put on the engine stand and pulled the plastic off of it. I was very pleased with how it turned out.

A side shot of the engine. The engine was bored out 0.030 over, new pistons, valve guides installed, R3 cam, head decked and planed and the rods shot peened. I also had the fiber timing gear replaced with an aluminum one.

I taped off all of the parts that didn't need painting using a little trick taught to me by Ray. Tape the area off with duct tape and tap lightly on the tape with a hammer to cut the tape makes the job easier and will give you cleaner paint lines.
	The engine was first painted with an etching primer and then painted the correct shade of silver.
The engine was also shot with a coat of clearcoat to make engine cleaning easier in the future. I waited about 10 minutes before I took the tape off. The paint wasn't completely cured, but was dry to the touch.
	The timing gear, valley cover, oil pan, water pump housing, vent tube and intake manifold were also primed with self-etching primer.
Once everything had dried, the parts were then painted silver just like the block. It seems Studebaker liked to use a lot of silver paint on this engine. I have started some assembly on the engine but ran out of time and didn't want to rush ruining the paint job because the parts weren't fully cured.