Painting 8.1 or any other LS engine?

[IGOR]

So - I bought an 8.1 last month.

I want to clean it up a bit - paint it - but am not planning to rebuild it.

Any advice on how to clean up this motor without damaging sensors?

My neighbor has a sandblasting business, and I'm very tempted to use him - but don't want to leave sensors on block and get them blasted to heck. Any good ideas on sealing holes with sensors removed?

How do you guys prep these things for paint? Is it best to use a small 90 with the pads?

[Clyde65]

I wouldnt do the sand blasting at all, even on a rebuild. just use some engine degreaser, bag all the sensors on the truck, use rubber bands tight around the base. clean with wire brush where you can and a scotch brite pad where the brush wont fit.

I cleaned mine that way, used brake clean on a scotch brite pad,let it dry and sprayed with engine enamel...orange in my case.

[swb85]

^^^Agree. Wire wheel is your friend here.

[jays68yak]

I used purple industrial cleaner and a pressure washer on mine. Then painted with duplicolor engine paint.


And heres a hella fuzzy picture.

[DirtyLarry]

I always just remove the sensors all together. You can buy bags of plugs from Harbor Freight to plug the holes once you pull the sensors out. Soak the engine with Simple Green then hit it with pressurized water and paint’er up! I think an 8.1L would look awesome is good ole Chevrolet orange.

The 8.1L has a dry intake with resuable gaskets so you can pull the intake off completely when you paint it.

Here is a TBI 350 I did a few years ago. Simple Green and power wash then remove sensors, and painted it.


After paint and reassembly. Rattlecan rebuild!

[IGOR]

Larry -

What about the other cast aluminum pieces on this engine? Are they "dry" seals as well?

I would like to pull timing cover, valve covers, oil pan, and intake during this process -

I'm toying with the idea of getting them either powder coated, polished, or chromed.

[DirtyLarry]

What I mean about the intake being dry is there is no coolant flowing through it. The oil pan and valve covers have reusable gaskets as well. Depending how many miles and heat cycles your engine has been through will determine if they will actually be reusable. You’ll know when you take it apart as the gaskets will either fall apart or stay intact. The timing chain cover has a formed reusable gasket also but has a lot of sealant towards the oil pan side so I would just pull the cam sensor and paint it still on the engine. Actually, I would paint everything right on the engine but I personally am not into shinny stuff like polishing or chroming. If nothing leaks now, why bother pulling that stuff off and potentially creating a leak.

Also, this is a good time to change the crank sensor while the engine is out, especially if it has around 80 to 100K on it, as you will absolutely not be able to change it once it is in the truck. If your engine has aluminum valve covers you already have the latest design crank sensor. If it had black valve covers you would definitely want to change the crank sensor to the later design, which GM superseded the part numbers anyway so you automatically get the later sensor regardless of what year 8.1L you order the crank sensor for. The early design crank sensor has two o-rings (one at the top and one at the bottom) while the later only has one at the top of the sensor.