Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Painting carbs and intake manifold?

I would like to pain my carbs and intake manifold black to match the rest of the speedmaster motor. Has anyone else done this? Is so what kind of paint did you use and what prep steps did you go through?

If no one has first hand experience I figure I'll take the carbs completely apart. Clean em with carb cleaner and alchohol then use paint for BBQs to deal with the heat.


Thanks,
Hugh

Your main problem is going to be making sure you get a paint that won't be soluble in the toy plastic fuel they are selling these days. Even if your carb screws are very carefully torqued and you have all new gaskets, there is likely to be at least a little fuel seep out and the wrong paint will bubble along the edges of the gasket surfaces and sealed points such as the choke valve and throttle shaft.

I use to paint Holly carbs and here is what seemed to work.
Prime with Zinc Chromate or Zinc Oxide after good cleaning.
Then use an Aircraft type paint. I use to use Imron from
PPG. Gas wont touch that stuff!!! It's a wicked paint so use
the correct mask!!! I use to pump air through a hose fixed
to my painting mask. Imron will coat your lungs like a plastic bag!!!
I'm sure there are other paints now days that are resistent
to gas also. Visit a paint dealer. He'll be glad to hook you up!

OOPS! Sorry! Imron is a DuPont product.
Been awhile since I used it.

I've not looked closely at the Bonny's carbs, so I'm not sure if it has external air bleed holes. You don't want to paint over those rascals, as that would seriously enrichen your mixture!

Make sure aluminum surfaces are completely clean of oxidation and then paint within the hour. The higher the content of non-aluminum material, the faster the alloy will corrode.

After using privateer's recommended primer, you might want to consider painting with a single part epoxy paint. Your local paint store can supply you with a spray can of such, even to the point of filling a one-off can for you.