I have a Caddy intake I was pondering ceramic coating. I was wondering if I could coat over any type of a filler etc? I was wanting to polish it to a show shine, filling any imperfections etc. Not sure what would stand up to the heat, while coating? I will polish it as best as possible, but how do the professionals deal with pits etc? I haven't mastered welding aluminum, so I am hesitant to tackle that aspect.
I can only speak on the Hot jet coating. Ceramics will take more heat then powder. The aluminum pigmented Hot jet, the pigment settles to the bottom rapidly. You could use this binder and pigment as a paste to fill in deeper pitting. Stir it ,shake it and apply with a gravity touch up gun. You then can bake it or let it air dry or let it air dry for 48 hours. Gently polish it with number 000 steel wool followed by metal polish. PS you can pour gasoline on it polish it with copper brush. I love winding you guys up but this is what they did 25 years ago with ceramic. I hope this helps
You can powder coat, I did it on my exhaust manifolds and am well pleased at how well it has healed up. HRP
If your going to have it coated.....IF...... Don't bother with the polish,just smooth it out the best you can,and you'de be happy with.... Now- for severe pitting= If it's extreme,and bugs to know it's there, then might have to have it filled in in area's,then re-smooth...... it's all about the "look"....... A competent coater can be a lil "heavy" in some places per direction to fill in imperfections........ All about what you want/spend/time/results.......... just food for thought.
I did not coat this intake manifold myself, but did have it done. It was rough cast with no smooth surfaces, but came out nice and smooth after ceramic coating. I am happy with the look, but it would have come out nicer if the manifold was sanded smooth before coating.
A shop near me applied a high temp coating in the crossover where the exhaust went thru and cleared the rest... still looked good when I sold it. 3-2 yblock
I have done a few that were brand new and polished them myself, then had them coated. This one is a 60’s Weiand dual quad for the Caddy motor. It has seen some abuse over the years. I have been trying to remedy a lot of it. I’ll post a pic tonight.
I may be an old stick in the mud, but that ceramic coat doesn't look right to me, It doesn't look like polished aluminum and it doesn't look like chrome. I think you are better off not coating it if you care anything at all about trying to make it period correct looking....
I concur. The ones I have done in the past were more for a utilitarian role on a driver that I didn't want to worry about cleaning. The ceramic coatings have their own issues though. It dulls after time. They require a little polishing, not as much as just plain polished, but they aren’t maintenance free.
My powdercoating experience is that any epoxy-based 'filler' (and all of them are) will show after coating if it's got any thickness. The problem as far as I can tell is the filler and aluminum don't have the same expansion rate and under cure heat the border between them will show up as a 'line'. I've gotten mostly around that by doing multiple coats and sanding between them, but never fully eliminated the seams.
This is a close up of the intake on my Desoto Hemi. It is a hot heads manifold that I ground all of their casting numbers and name off of, softened the corners a bit and smoothed the casting. Then I shot it in high temp ceramic 2K hardened gloss black from Eastwood. This is after cam burn-in and other being a bit dusty, looks nice and the price was right!
The one intake I stepped up and spent $ to powder coat got a 3 inch long crack in the powder right in front of the manifold after less than a summer of use. SOB. Not saying it will happen to you. I'm not doing anymore of them.
https://www.jet-hot.com/contact-us Jet Hot is the one you want. We have used them for years on our turbines. It holds up.
I own a powder coat shop, been doing it for 15 years. The only way you will get a crack like that in the finished powder is if its "under" cured. Sounds like whoever coated your manifold didn't cure it out long enough. When I do manifolds I usually cure it out between 30-40 minutes. A lot of coaters will run the final cure to like 15 minutes if the powder manufacture calls for like 400 degrees @ 15 minutes, that doesn't mean its fully cured out! When we used to have booths set up at shows, we powder coated thin pieces of aluminum blanks and when someone ask how durable powder coat was we would wack the samples with a hammer and fold it in half in the palm of my hand and the coating would never crack apart. Its all in the prep and making sure its cured out long enough!
This thread was started. A couple years ago. I had the intake polished. It looks pretty good. I tend to collect manifolds, get them polished then change my mind and buy a different one.
Yes you can, I have done it before. As long as any buffing/polishing compounds are removed from the surface before the clear is applied. A super durable clear or an epoxy clear would be what I would use for a top coat
You can, but I wouldn't. First, any clear coating you put over polished aluminum will tend to dull the finish. How much will vary with material used. And that not even the bad part. The bad is if there's any break or flaw in the finish, corrosion will get under it and the only way to fix it is fully strip and repolish. That's not a if, it's a when. Plus powder doesn't stick well to polished surfaces, particularly aluminum, so lifting/peeling can happen. And while powdercoat is very resistant to most automotive fluids, it does stain. Same fix as above.
Just want to clarify; the ceramic coating in question is designed for high temperature applications. Regular powder coat won’t stand up to the heat on the exhaust crossover port (assuming you have one). I I will melt, and look like crap.
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