painting your engine bay

[nicolas]

ok here i it is

after paying way too much to the bodyrepairshop now over a year ago i want to do the inside of the enginebay. that has been worked on but never painted properly or even cleaned up decently.

so i always liked the black paint that was put in enginebays in the 70's. my enginetin is black so i will paint it all again myself. but what paint do i use? zolotone paint? does that stil exist? i like it , but what brand is it today over here in europe. i will need a couple of liters of that stuff.

thanks

and please show some nicely painted enginebays in this post if you like...

[Shubee2 (DSK)]

Here are two of my cars from the 70's that had the engine compartment zolotoned black with gray specks just the firewall and side panels were done everything else was body color on the red 67 the inside of the deck lid was also done as well as the front hood

[Bryan67]

I wouldn`t do it. It looks cool but real paint is much more durable then that stuff.

[Zach Gomulka]

Zolatone (sp?) is nearly impossible to clean! Oil gets into all those litte crevases and never comes out.

[nicolas]

it is pretty rough, isn't it? maybe a pain in the @ss to clean, but what are my options? what paint can i use, and most of all can i do it myself??? i am at this pointnot willing to pay the same amount of money to have both the front and back of my trunks painted.
it is a type 3 so maybe the engine bay alone? but i was thinking about doing the whole trunk both front and back.

maybe the best option is to have the trunks done in cloth or suede, but i am worried about fire in the trunk. i think i will go for a type1 engine setup later on so it might not be the best idea...

i have seen a notch from dkk with a 1776 engine and the bay was done in plaid. the engine had a turbo that was above the decklid so i guess it can be done. as i said before, this is not my first option, but maybe my best...

thanks and keep those ideas coming

[Lids]

I did my engine bay and then used high resistant lacquer over the top, this helped get rid of most the bumps.  I used trunk paint from www.frost.co.uk

[Shubee2 (DSK)]

You Can Buy Zolotone  in Spray Cans from any G.M. Car Dealer its not thick like the paint stores sell its used in all G.M. Trunks as a finish it last a long time and its low Maint. As far as Oil?  Whos VW Leaks Oil?? Not Any of Mine and how would it ever get on the firewall? if it ever did You Have Much Bigger Problems to Worry About  it takes two can of the G.M.  trunk paint to do a VW engine compartment it Covers well but is messy so make sure you mask off everything you dont want painted if you do get a little paint on the loom  or painted surface just wipe it down with a water soaked rag then dry it comes right  until it drys ...

[The Ideaman]

Bryan,Daniel and I Zolotoned the engine compartment of one of the 67's we found a couple years ago.  I don't care much for the look.  The only reason we did it was because of the engine fire it had.  Cleaned up that mess, though.

[Cheesepanzer]

When I did my old 62 Beetle I simply used some "trunk spater paint" from my local auto parts store.  It was a two step process of first covering the firewall with the spatter paint and letting that dry, then applying a clear laquer over that.  It held up very, very well to all sorts of abuse (oil or otherwise).     When it came time to do my Ghia I used another brand of the trunk paint, and so far I'm real happy with the results. 

[Steve D.]

I layed down two layers of sound deadening material (b-quiet) on the back of my firewall, and then sprayed the whole thing with a rubber undercoating- came out real nice and smooth, and it is some tough durable stuff.  Just another way to skin a bug...