Lush Daddy

I've got an '89 Carrera who's (like most peoples I'm sure) has a sparkling engine and components except for the freakin' fan and its housing which is a funky corroded greenish/gold color. I've seen some pictures of some peoples engines where they've polished the housing to a chrome-like appearance and painted the blades with enamel paint to match their car etc....

Has anyone had any experience with sprucing up the finish to these parts, as well as know of anyone who might be able to polish/paint these things?

Help!!!

David
Atlanta,GA

Walt

I am preparing to do mine over the winter. Decided to hand polish the blade and hi-temp paint the shroud and hardware. Lots of mixed opinions about painting the blade as the air flow tends to wear the finish fairly quick, particulaly at the fan tips. Some owners have had reported good results with powder coat.

Lots of info on this in the archives.

993chaz

For powder coating, I have had great success with Summit Powder Coaters.
330-753-7040 ask for Doug or Mike, they will do a great job.

expathk

I've just completed three hours cleaning the blades. Man my fingers are sore but I'm close to a beautiful shiny chrome like finish.

I started out using a pot scrubbing pad but this didn't remove the pits easily. I moved up to sandpaper (120 grit) and started sanding by hand. The grunge came off quite well. Then I polished it all with Autosol metal polish to get the gleam.

I think that I will do it again starting with more coarse grit and slowly (maybe three grades) become increasingly finer, before finishing off with the polish.

I did this with the fan on the motor, in the car! Sure would be better off!

I really can't see how powder coating car work given the small tolerance to the shroud from the blades but obviously people have done it.

Cheers
Mark

Lush Daddy

Mark,

Any pictures you can share? I'm about to tackle this one, and didn't know what kind of outcome to expect.

David

Lush Daddy

Mark,

Here is my engine before I had it detailed, but you can see the problem with the fan.
http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/engine1.jpg.JPG


dw

expathk

Hi David,

Sorry, only photos I've got are still in camera (35mm). My blades were much worse than yours and came up to chrome finish. I also did the same process for several other metal bits around the engine and got some really nice shine. I'll give you more details later today, I'm at work (during holidays) supposedly working on my dissertation, so I can't go into details now.

Just do it, you'll be happy with the shine and if not, well the next step is to get it painted or powder coated but maybe do a search here or at Pelican BB first to see what others have said. Also I'm sure there's some photos on PBB of polished blades.

Cheers
Mark

goose

those blades are made of some sort of aluminium
magnesium mix, i actually had mine sandblasted
and treated w/ a process called DOW 7 its sort of a greenish gold finish, and they do it most places where they do anodizing, its a similair process but intended for magnesium. it looks bitchen and will last forever

goose

just checkin, hi everyone

Lush Daddy

Goose,

Do you have any pictures of the look that you ended up with that you can e-mail to me or post? Also, how much did this end up costing you, as well as how long did it take? Did you do the fan housing as well?

dw