Z1OwnersClub GB

Hi , has anYone sprayed the engine cases silver in place if polishing or vapor blasting
Re
Samantha

Hi Samantha

spraying an engine is not the same as using a rattle can...
If you want to do that you have to degrease the whole engine and that's as much work as polishing it.
I use a spraygun and special paint that sticks to aluminium. Aluminium is a weird metal and if you don't prepare it, the paint will peel off after a short while.
My suggestion is that you use nylon brushes on a drill to clean the engine, use different brushes so you can reach almost all the hard to reach places.
You can also use some sort of scotch brite to get between the cooling fins.
It's important you remove the layer of oxidation (the dark grey look) .
Just clean it, and you'll be amazed by the appearance. It takes several days but it's worth the while.
Just have a look at my posts when I restore a bike, you'll see the brushes and the chemicals I use to clean an engine.
Keep in mind that I take the engine out of the frame and that the whole engine is taken apart before I degrease it and remove the oxidation or old paint before spraying it. It sounds crazy, I know.
That's a method that works for me, perhaps other people on here can give you better advice.
Good luck with it !
GrtZ
Philippe

From painted black to this with just time and elbow grease.

Depends if the engine is in bits or not, if it's being stripped down vapour blasting gives a really good result and is probably the most efficient way of doing the job.

If not its polishing or painting, which are probably the same amount of labour.

Personally, i like building engines and hate painting and polishing so I'd find an excuse to strip it down, but that's just my preference. Some people love polishing. The thought of polishing or prepping and painting a whole air cooled four with all those fins and crevices gives me the horrors.

Olly

As Philippe says...

It might take as much work to prep the engine properly for Silver paint as it does to polish/clean it by hand.

My old Z1B engine before/after cleaning by hand...

I’ve just done a hybrid of finishes on my A1. Because I didn’t need to split the cases I sorted them with days of cleaning by hand with small wire brushes and dremel as others on her have detailed but I did have the barrels and head vapour blasted.

If you have the engine stripped down, take it to Steve Smethurst, let him vapour clean it then he gives it a ceramic bead polish, they come up great.