I am restoring a 1980 Volare from the ground up. The K frame is sandblasted and in a light coat of primer. Am working on sandblasting the rest of the front end, including the brake calipers. This will be far from a numbers matching job, a lot of custom/modified stuff, including my engine/trans choice but am trying to make the car look like it "could have been" factory. I want to do the best job I can, for the $$ spent. Would I be better to POR 15 everything or powdercoat? It will be driven quite a bit in good weather but garaged in winter. What's the largest size/weight that can be powdercoated?? (Possibly the Engine block and A 833 OD trans case) One last thing; I have 2, A 833 od's. One, an orig. A or F version, aluminum, the other a long tail truck one. If I were to powdercoat once apart, would the aluminum or the cast iron take better to powdercoating?

Powdercoating is an electrostatic process, so if you powdercoat the engine bare it will be painted inside and out, which you don't want. I would rebuild the engine to long block and plug all holes, then spray the whole thing in epoxy or urethane. If you want it to look factory you will also have to hook up the negative battery cable to the engine and spray with liquid paint about six or seven inches up its length where it bolts under the power steering bracket.

Depending on the shop the sky is usually the limit on powdercoating. Blastech in Brantford powdercoats transit bus skeletons, and can sandblast and paint items as long as 200ft, and as wide as 80 ft. They paint silos, cellular transceiver towers, bridge supports, anything imaginable in any of a huge selection of coatings, all within the confines of their spray booths.

I usually only powdercoat suspension parts, and I usually choose semigloss black. Aluminum parts can be painted, but only after theyve been primed in zinc chromate, I dont think powdercoating is a good choice, but I could be wrong.

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I've been calling it as i see it for my entire life and that's not about to change. Take it or leave it.

Powder coating the block is not a problem and I have done quite a few of them. I normally have the owner hot tank the block and then bring it directly to me. I then use a phosphate wash to rinse the block with.(A good phospahte helps the powder "bite" in to the substrate better and also helps prevent flash rusting before coating) I then tape up the head surface and water pump surface with Hi-Temp powder coating tape. If available I put an old oil pan on the motor or tape up this surface as well. You can install any plugs that you want at this time as well. Then I can powder coat it whatever color the customer wants without getting powder inside the block itself.

My oven is 20' long 10' wide and 10' high. So anything that will fit in the oven and survivie the temp I can powder coat it.

POR 15 is good stuff. But if you decide to powder coat this later it will be a pain to strip. DO NOT SANDBLAST THE BLOCK! I know someone that used another coater that prepped it this way and they never got all of the sand out of the block. It continued to cause problems after the motor was built to the point they finnaly scrapped the block and started over.

Aluminum would be better but both can be coated. Cast parts tend to have open cavities in them that will outgas once heated. Cast parts can be coated but make sure the shop you are using pre-heats the cast parts 10-15 degrees hotter and 10-15mins longer than the cure cycle for the powder. This can help get rid of outgassing. Some castings never stop outgassing because of the cheap materials used in the original casting process. As long as the aluminum is cleaned and a good chemical pre-treatment is used then the powder will adhere and last a long time. I have powder coated aluminum and then wring the piece of Al until it breaks. The powder never break loose it is the aluminum itself that sperates.

Pre-treatment and prep is the key to good long lasting powder coating. If the shop does not prep it right then it will never last.

If you have other questions please let me know. Check out www.customcoaters.com for a shop in your area.

Tom Drake

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Nitrous cars are like old men on Viagra. Once the bottle is empty they are useless.
FJD