Restoring Rusty

[rusty76]

I like to bag the parts and then put a note card in the bag telling me what and where they come from. That way when I forget what I did with that part and find it the ink won't have faded or worn off the bag...lol.

[Gregski]

OK, finally got the entire hood done, no more rust, man lots of work to get here, lots of zero fun, hunker down and git er done

[Gregski]

found out Harbor Freight sells primer now, so why not try it on the hood, here is their IRON ARMOR Self Etching Primer, with their 20% off coupon a can was about $4 bucks so I bought one and had my son buy one

[Gregski]

I think a can is about a coat, so ended up doing two coats / two cans on the hood

the interesting thing is the first coat came out half darker gray half lighter gray, (second pic) did I not shake the can all that well to start, I don't know, or is this Harbor Freight special as always, LOL

first pic - just plain prepped hood

second pic - first coat of primer

third pic - second coat of primer

[Gregski]

Rusty, Rusty, Rusty, sometimes I think you don't love me any more, I clean ya, I fix ya, I de-rust ya and this is how you thank me, this is what you've been hiding from me all this time

So what to do, what to do?

A. Ignore it, paint the darn thing green ~ IT'S A TRUCK

B. Ghetto bondo them holes and paint green over it - It's a truck!

C. Buy a new hood, do it right

D. Paint it green and weld it / fix it later [pronounced] never, LOL

[Titomars]

If it was mine, I would ghetto bondo it for now paint it and enjoy rusty. Then plan on a new replacement hood at a later date.

[Chaplain]

I would do the same. I'm going to going for the patina look with my rusty old blue truck. However, I actually have a hood I'll give you. Drive on over to west TN and it's yours.

[greg64]

Greg, the hoods are notorious for rusting there. I welded up my first hood, bondoed and painted and it was okay. But much later I found a hood with no rust (free!) that I cleaned up and repainted. I'd just do a quickie fix for now. Fix it later (if ever).

[Chaplain]

Only because I don't want to paint, I am going to keeps rust and blue paint. That's why I have a hood and two finder to move along.

[Gregski]

a little Confession

Father it has been a couple weeks since my last intake manifold swap, since then the trucks oil leak has turned into an oil water fall (all signs point to the back of the intake manifold the flat valley area where no gasket was used but RTV only [as per the now questionable intake manifold instructions], as the oil runs down the bellhousing and passed the starter, the valve cover gaskets seem ok, dry)

So no pictures but I pulled the intake off again, yes for a third time, this time I went out and bought some black RTV gasket maker and yet another FelPro gasket.

One final time I am blaming myself for a poor installation, but that will be the last time I do that. If it fails again I am tossing this Weiand intake as it is not the Weiand of the 70's and 80's this casting is crap. The two middle bolts on the passenger side are impossible to torque to spec properly as the wrench does not fit there proper by the offset to one side carb tower. It's enuff to almost make The Greg go out and get an Edelbrock Performer.

So here is the one last final plan. Use the black RTV to run the fattest widest bead that can fit on the 3/16th back wall of the block by that silly oil pressure location stub. Do the same on the front. Also add additional blobs in the bottom four corners where the heads meet the block (what a horrible / terrible design, that should be a beautiful natural curve / sweep not a sharp jagged edge, blah)

Then coat, smear that black RTV on the cylinder head walls liberally, then do the same on the walls of the intake. (Last time I think I put the orange RTV only around the water jackets, but not this time, this time is for real)

And here is the key to the entire operation.

... WAIT ~ WAIT ~ WAIT ~ then wait some more

I waited an hour for the RTV beads to set then waiting 24 hours before putting the fluids back in, last time I did not wait that long, heck I may wait a couple days.

Like someone said on this forum, they rather scrape old stuck gaskets off than have a leak! Amen to that!

[rich weyand]

If you do get the Performer, you can get the air-gap version if you will be keeping the air pre-heat tube on the air cleaner. So, 2101 is regular, 2601 is air-gap.

I think biggest thing with sealing up the one you have is 1) clean the mating surfaces with lacquer thinner to remove any oil or residue completely, and 2) anywhere you are using a sealer/cement/silicone, spread it on both sides of the gap you are sealing. You want the final assembly to only require that the compound seal to itself, and not to have to form a bond to a clean surface.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by rich weyand

If you do get the Performer, you can get the air-gap version if you will be keeping the air pre-heat tube on the air cleaner. So, 2101 is regular, 2601 is air-gap.

I think biggest thing with sealing up the one you have is 1) clean the mating surfaces with lacquer thinner to remove any oil or residue completely, and 2) anywhere you are using a sealer/cement/silicone, spread it on both sides of the gap you are sealing. You want the final assembly to only require that the compound seal to itself, and not to have to form a bond to a clean surface.

Great tip as always Rich, thank you. Is compound to gasket ok, or should we be smearing compound on the gaskets as well?

[rich weyand]

Always put compound on both sides of any gap you are sealing, so that would be both the metal flange and the gasket, then seat the gasket to the flange. That seating process will mate compound to compound, which is what you want.

I used TiteSeal (which is a non-hardening gasket seal product the fly-boys use) on both sides of my valve cover gaskets, so I had four surfaces to coat on each side.

[enaberif]

Your post about RTV sounds like you are using way to much lol.

When I put the intake on my truck I put just enough rtv on the head side so the gaskets would stick and then bolted it down.

For the china walls a good 1/4" bead down the walls and up the heads was all I did.

But before I did all that I ensured 100% that all surfaces were clean using acetone and smooth by using 120 grit sandpaper.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by enaberif

Your post about RTV sounds like you are using way to much lol.

I may have exaggerated, I smeared it on the head and the intake with my finger enuff for it to be tacky/sticky, so it's all good.

[400/400]

I've had good results sealing China walls on a couple of engines with "The Right Stuff" made by Permatex. I got the aresol can which makes application a bit easier than the roll up tube.

[Jake Wade]

http://www.summitracing.com/search/b...oview=SKU&ar=1

As mentioned, clean, clean ,clean with laquer thinner or brake cleaner on china walls and intake.

[Gregski]

decided to rub the belly of the hood a little bit today, going to clean it up and POR15 it black to keep the cost down

[Gregski]

POR15ed the belly of the hood, here's what it looked like before the gnats found it

[y5mgisi]

Looks super good!

[77K10Silverado]

jammin'!

[68Timber]

I've never used POR but every time I see it online it looks great - I've got to get some and try it.

[Gregski]

Originally Posted by BRUISER

I've never used POR but every time I see it online it looks great - I've got to get some and try it.

Actually it always looks like glass when wet then it dries all blotchy, I will try to take another pic of the hood and show you once it completely dries. I do not know what causes this.

I was wondering if it dries different over shinny clean metal vs rusty sections, or paint covered sections, I don't know. Though I did check some parts that were same surface ie clean metal and it still dried shinny in one area and flat in the other.

I even called POR15 the company and told them about this issue, and they basically said sometimes it just does that.

[rusty76]

Must have something to do with the way it flashes. Looks good either way.

[Zayzay]

Wanted to say that I have learned a lot from your thread and everyone's input. Wow, amazing work.