Cleaning and probably painting Edelbrock Torker

[tallhair]

What source brand of paint do you guys recommend for the original turquoise color and or aluminum look paint? I plan to use the Mopar brand turquoise unless there's a better and cheaper one that looks the same or even more accurate. But I'm also thinking of painting it with 'aluminum look paint' to get the clean raw / brand new aluminum look. I don't have home access to any bead / sand blasting equipment and I don't know if it's good to just run them unpainted or painted with clear coat as I've heard that yellows. I could take this one to the local auto hobby shop and sand blast it, but it's been years and I'm not sure how much they charge or if they still have the equipment but thats a possibility. I have no idea if it would come out ok or have stains etc under the paint.

Suggestions please and pictures / what you did welcome.

If I go the paint route which I imagine will be the end result I need something that will hopefully stay on and look good even with the engine heat. I do plan to block the heat cross over.

Here's some photos:

We've used Dawn and water, then Purple foaming something with Kabooom! oxiclean (which does a great job on the interior), and now I'm using oven cleaner - easy off .. full fume version. I'm in the garage and watching the ventilation with overhead and man door open and fan blowing.

Before (after cleaning with Dawn)

Other end after cleaning with oven cleaner, water rinse, then wire brush. I sprayed a test spot on and left it for about 10 min and this is what it looked like after. As you can see it used to be turquoise but i put in on my 70 which was Orange so I painted it black 30+ years ago.

I've been cleaning parts this weekend along with the help of my daughter, thank goodness for her help!. Late last night

Here's some from last night and the underside w/o oven off just dawn and water and then Kaboom oxiclean spray on foaming stuff. BTW it was never painted underneath. I used a razor scraper on the gasket surface.

 

[Moparsmitty]

I'm lucky that I have a friend that runs a machine shop. He lets me use his commercial parts washer occasionally to clean really grungy parts. I know it's lots of fun to get all grungy and make a big mess in the shop but I guess I'm too lazy to do all that anymore. If you have a shop close by that has a big cleaner, they might not charge too much if you schmooze them a little bit. As far as the paint, I've used Eastwood Alumi-Blast before and had real good results. It's kind of pricey at $15 a can, but it's good paint. Sorry I don't have any pics handy. Great to see your daughter helping out.

 

[tallhair]

I went back and hit it again. This time I tried some "super clean' degreaser stuff that comes in a purples spray bottle that I forgot we had. It's not as effective so I'm back to oven cleaner and taking a break now to clear the head and give the back a break .. Man i need a stand up work bench and a tall chair for when I need to break. This bending over crap and doing it on the floor is killing me.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm lucky that I have a friend that runs a machine shop. He lets me use his commercial parts washer occasionally to clean really grungy parts. I know it's lots of fun to get all grungy and make a big mess in the shop but I guess I'm too lazy to do all that anymore. If you have a shop close by that has a big cleaner, they might not charge too much if you schmooze them a little bit. As far as the paint, I've used Eastwood Alumi-Blast before and had real good results. It's kind of pricey at $15 a can, but it's good paint. Sorry I don't have any pics handy. Great to see your daughter helping out.

Thanks for the paint suggestion smitty. Does it look like actual aluminum and did 1 spray bomb work or did it require 2?

She and her twin sister have put in lot of hours cleaning this past few weeks. They did most of the interior and did a great job. The one in the pic helped really late last night and didn't even want to stop at around 1100 but I was done and didn't want her working alone. Hopefully she'll kick in again this afternoon

 

[Moparsmitty]

I think it looks as close to bare cast aluminum as you are going to get out of a rattle can. I usually spray a couple of coats just to make sure I don't miss anything since there's plenty of paint in one can. Just make sure that the manifold is as clean and grease/oil free as you can get it and you should be good to go.

 

[tallhair]

I think it looks as close to bare cast aluminum as you are going to get out of a rattle can. I usually spray a couple of coats just to make sure I don't miss anything since there's plenty of paint in one can. Just make sure that the manifold is as clean and grease/oil free as you can get it and you should be good to go.

thanks smitty. I'll post some pics later I'm taking a breather again and it's getting pretty clean .. almost no black paint left and I'm never going to do this again LOL !!!!

Once I'm done cleaning and wire brushing I'll probably, wash it with soapy water again, let dry, then hit it with mineral spirits, then dawn and soapy water and let dry .. they wipe down with nice clean cloth and cover so it doesn't attract any dust etc until I paint it..

 

[okiemopar]

I spray mine down with brake cleaner right before I paint and let it dry good, I used Duplicolor Aluminum paint on mine and it still looks new after running it for allmost 4 years now. Good Luck

 

[tallhair]

Thanks Okie .. care to show a pic?

 

[Budnicks]

Send it to CudaChick, if you have it in your budget... Personally, I like the raw aluminum/new or just blasted look myself... I've seen a few with the 68 Turquoise Blue paint, looked pretty good too... after your all done with all the soap & other stuff, maybe try some Lacquer Thinner & a stiff wire brush, let it soak if you can in a plastic type storage container & if it's older paint the Lacquer Thinner should eat at it pretty well, then repeat steps... not the cheapest way but might work...

 

[okiemopar]

I can't post pictures. Sorry but it does look good, it is on my 70 383 RoadRunner and it hasn't changed color are came off any where on it. I got my paint at the local Orielly's are NAPA and it is high temp. paint.

 

[tallhair]

I can't post pictures. Sorry but it does look good, it is on my 70 383 RoadRunner and it hasn't changed color are came off any where on it. I got my paint at the local Orielly's are NAPA and it is high temp. paint.

Excellent and thanks for the recommendation. I need to get over to O'Reilly's anyway to get a replacement for a rear strut that failed on my Durango that I bought about a month ago and has been popping of ever since but that's another issue.

- - - Updated - - -

Send it to CudaChick, if you have it in your budget... Personally, I like the raw aluminum/new or just blasted look myself... I've seen a few with the 68 Turquoise Blue paint, looked pretty good too... after your all done with all the soap & other stuff, maybe try some Lacquer Thinner & a stiff wire brush, let it soak if you can in a plastic type storage container & if it's older paint the Lacquer Thinner should eat at it pretty well, then repeat steps... not the cheapest way but might work...

Thanks Budnicks and excellent suggestions and advice. I'd love to do something with cudachick but haven't found the right part yet and I don't think this intake is it. I plan to use it as an intermediary step to hopefully upgrading to a 6 BBL set up and keep it for later use on something else. I'd just like it to look good until i get there and who know's how long that will be.

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I'm taking another break obviously and I've been out scrubbing off and on most of the day and almost all of the black paint and 99% of the grease is gone. I have some mineral spirits and plan to use that unless it's not a good idea, then soak is a dawn soap and water solution after to make sure all the cleaning products are off.

Anyone have another solution or option for the Mopar color correct 68 Turquoise paint or is the best there is the Mopar Perf stuff? I still haven't made up my mind on aluminum look or turq.

Also, is there a heat safe / non yellowing clear that I can use if it comes up natural nicely? I haven't ruled that out yet

 

[tallhair]

Here's and update

Progress

Cleaner

\

Almost done

 

[MarPar]

tallhair needs a tall chair lol

it looks good B. i found 68 turquoise paint from Mr MoPar parts http://www.mrmoparts.net/mopar-engine-paint-red-blue-orange-turquoise/ it matches pretty well to the other parts i have under the hood (taking in to account the other parts are a bit "seasoned") pic:



the part number is P4120752AB. he wants $16 a can plus shipping...i bought one with some other parts i got, and wound up buying 2 more cans just to have on hand. hope it helps!!

oh btw, the intake looks pretty darn close to being ready. just gotta get the grimy bits in-between the runners clean. have you tried simple green and a wire brush? simple green is da sh*t. mix it half and half, and the grime will come right up!!

good luck brother!

 

[tallhair]

Thanks Mar .. I was hoping someone would catch that as I was typing it and you came through as usual man !!

That old intake looks fairly good now but I'll have to load the pics later since I'm tired as hell but it was worth it but I'm gonna take Smitty's advice and find a local shop or someone to make frieds with who'll let me use their parts washer when I need to degrease something else. In hindsight I wish I would have went straight to the easy off and been a little heavier handed with it but I was being cautious and yeah I used a wire brush and it came of great but I've still got lot's of hours in the sum bi-atch this weekend. Never again ... well not anytime soon ;)

I did clean some other parts too so it wasn't all this intake and I'll post some photo's of them to probably.

 

[Meep-Meep]

Anything that is caustic (sodium hydroxide) will attack the aluminum. The purple cleaner is on that list as well as oven cleaner. How you will know is when the aluminum starts to foam up and turn gray shortly after. These cleaners will remove grease pretty well but I wouldn't leave them on the aluminum too long. For old paint you might get away with using acetone or paint remover and a wire brush.

 

[tallhair]

Anything that is caustic (sodium hydroxide) will attack the aluminum. The purple cleaner is on that list as well as oven cleaner. How you will know is when the aluminum starts to foam up and turn gray shortly after. These cleaners will remove grease pretty well but I wouldn't leave them on the aluminum too long. For old paint you might get away with using acetone or paint remover and a wire brush.

Thanks Meep. That's one of the reasons it took me so long as I was being really cautious and not doing large sections at once then scrubbing and dipping the wire brush (small one) in water as I worked the paint and grease loose. Then rinsed, then let dry then did another section. I think I was a little over cautious though. I did wash it down with dawn / water solution when done, then went out and hosed it down really good with the water hose.

 

[Lowhound]

If you think it was time consuming cleaning your intake then you should try polishing one of those suckers. That's one thing I will never do again.

 

[CudaChick1968]

Anything that is caustic (sodium hydroxide) will attack the aluminum. The purple cleaner is on that list as well as oven cleaner. How you will know is when the aluminum starts to foam up and turn gray shortly after. These cleaners will remove grease pretty well but I wouldn't leave them on the aluminum too long. For old paint you might get away with using acetone or paint remover and a wire brush.

A bigggggg x2 on that! Aluminum is very porous and everything soaks into it.

If you have access to a shop oven tallhair, heat it up for a few hours. It'll help bring all the embedded / soaked in grunge to the surface. Short of blasting it, it's really tough to get all the discoloration out of a used manifold but yours is cleaning up pretty well.