Painting Cast Iron Intake Manifold

Looking for a bit of advice: In the process of doing a valve grind job on a 59 Ford (352) and took off the Intake last night. I want to clean and paint it, but not sure of the best way to go about it. Was thinking of sandblasting it, but its a big block and wont really fit in the blaster. Other idea was to attack it with a wire brush and then paint it. Does anyone have anyother ideas on the best way to go about this and what paint to use.....maybe a VHT etching paint?? Any advice is appreciated

 

I took my intake off to have it blasted by BigO and he said it was a real pain in the ***. At first we were going to just clear it but in the end a hi temp Silver paint did the trick after hours of bead blasting it. Probably using a combination of blasting, wire brushing and degreaser will give the desired effect. You could also have it powdercoated.

 

I blast hell out of em with media and then smooth with gl*** beads, then any powder will work, no need for high heat powders or paints on the intake. back in the day before I powdered everything, I used regular paints on my intakes.
Now I do em in Powdered chrome and top with a high gloss fuel resistant clear coat, ends up looking like polished aluminum and stays that way.
find you a local PC guy, he can help ya.

 

Get it hot tanked at the local machine shop, have them blast it IF they can get the heat shield off and feel confident they can get all the gl*** out of it. Paint it with a Krylon engine color spray can that almost matches what's on the rest of the engine.

 

If you bead blast it, put several layers of duct tape over the carburetor flange and all the rest of the ports. It's a pain to get all of the gl*** beads out from inside if you get them in there.

Bead blasting is the way to go though if you want to get it really clean and rust free to be able to get a nice paint job on it. POR 15 engine enamel is pretty nice. You brush it on and it goes on thick so you only need one coat. Spray can engine enamels look okay if you get the parts really clean first. If you have any oily spots though, the paint will bead up around them and look ugly.

If you can't bead blast it, the next best thing I think would be to scrub it with a wire brush with kerosene, then scrub it with Simple Green, and blast it off with water. If you see the water beading up on the surface anywhere, go back and re-clean those areas with more Simple Green. Then blast it clean with water and dry it quick before it gets rusty.

 

I had my 348 Tripower blasted and Powder Coated with a color called "Bead Blast Aluminum" It is satin and the steel intake looks like freshly blasted aluminum when it is done. Resists stains well.

 

I wire brushed mine (air tool), blew it out like crazy with an air gun, wiped with mineral spirits, 4 coats self etching primer, and 5 coats of industrial strength spray enamel.

 

Have your machine shop bake it. It'll clean the heat riser p***age better than any other method. If you blast it afterward, clean all threads with a tap.

 

I had mine sandblasted and ceramic coated satin aluminum look. The coater told me that ceramic coat resists stains better than powder,

 

Might be but that powder I had did clean up easy.

 

It might be that he just wanted me to pay more

 

If you want to go low buck. Just use oven cleaner. It works awesome and will usually take the paint off too.

 

I'll second that. Hose it down with oven cleaner, let it sit a few minutes, then spray the **** out of it with a garden hose (this is the messy part!).
After that any engine enamel will work. I've done this more than once on entire engines including the intakes and never had any problems with longevity. You can also just go to a quarter wash, lay it on the ground, and pressure spray the snot out of it. Oddly, this gives no more blowback than a garden hose, and the pressure will take off any loose paint. If you want to get really fancy you can wire brush it after it's dry and before you paint.