Dauntless Engine Enamel Paint

Hampton Green is close, but has more blue or green (I'm not expert) in it; it is more "minty" than the original. I've got just a small patch left on my original intake manifold, but it is too small an area to accurately judge. Here are a couple more shots of the finished BG11M:

 

Looks REAL gud Clint! Sort of takes the wind out my sails in trying to find a better match, if at all possible.

 

I am really happy with it. I consider myself a middle-of-the-road on detail: I am very conscious of what I'm putting back, but not so anal that I'm going to let the rebuild get held up due to finding that "exact" shade. I'm pretty sure unless the viewer was an ECJ5 restoration purist looking at it in person, they would 1) not care or just say "oooh, pretty paint," or 2) never be able to accurately tell the difference, anyway, especially with the whole motor painted (i.e. not trying to match parts).

 

the engine color looks like that green that some jeeps came in:? i doubt seriously if you are gonna find it in a aerosal can,might take a piece of the engine that still has good paint on it"ie valve cover,or something smaller" to an auto paint supplier,and let them scan it with there scanning tool and mix you up a pint

 

good work guys, my Dauntless has some original paint on it and Clint's discovery seems to be close to the color I see on mine. As a sidebar, my old Commando had a Dauntless that was a factory looking gold. The guy I bought it from had replaced the original 225 with a 225 from a marine application. I wonder if anyone has any info on 225s in boats with Jacuzzi jet drives. The engine I had was equipped with a small Holley four barrel on a cast iron OEM looking manifold. Wish I still had it.....

 

I was finally able to meet Jim "Jimmy Chips" Wells of AutoColorLibrary this morning. Jim was one of the original owners of Tri City Paint. He retired after selling his business interests but returned at the request of the new owners and now operates AutoColorLibrary for the company serving auto restoration buffs around the world. Jim is a great guy to listen to with his many years in the paint business. He truly seems to enjoy what he's doing. Anyway, back to the engine paint. Jim was very pleased with the amount of paint remaining on my engine and was confident that an accurate match could be made. He also agreed with our earlier thought that the valve cover would be the best source for the match. I had removed one valve cover and we used that to compare the paint with other places on the engine. According to Jim, since a primer was not originally used, the steel valve covers offered the best base material for color matching. Jim is now in the process of mixing up a small quantity of the paint in acrylic enamel, the type originally used, and prepare what he called some "test patterns". These will be produced on 3x5 material. I hope to get about 6 of them to pass along to those that would volunteer to compare against their original engine paint. Hopefully that will provide some additional confidence in the match. So, please PM if you are interested in a sample. I only ask that you contribute your findings to the group. On second thought, maybe it would be best to send all of the samples to Sparky and have him sort it out from there considering the article he's already started on the issue. I'll leave it up for him to decide which way to handle it.

 

I failed to include in the post above some of the other comments or observations made by Jim. Here they are before I forget them entirely.

The engine paint was applied by the factory without a primer. The parts were merely cleaned and at most phosphate coated or cleaned, whatever that means.

Only 1 thin coat of paint (2 at most) was applied at the factory. The same practice should be used in the restoration. I didn't think to ask why though.

The origin of the color was probably based on whatever the manufacturer could obtain inexpensively at the time and very probably something leftover from a previous production, either from the paint supplier or even another manufacturer (maybe Buick?). A practice not uncommon with any of the auto manufacturers at the time.

The paint is definitely a metallic mix made up of aluminum powder.

 

Great work! I am down now to just a very small handful of specks of original paint, some of them no bigger than a dime, so I'm out.

 

Why? because the thicker the paint coat, the easier it is to chip. a belief shared by most motorcycle manufacturers up until the 1980s. strip a gas tank some time and see what's under the paint.

 

Good news! Newly made paint chips patterned after the original paint on my valve covers are now complete. I'll post pictures of them early next week after returning from out of town.

 

If you want to send something to Sparky we can look at mine, and the few pieces Clint has left at our trail ride planned in a few weeks. Mine has quite a bit of paint left on it, some places look better than others.

Doesn't matter to me, i'll gladly mail them to the next person if you want us to have a look-see.

 

Again, please send me a PM with your address if interested in getting a "test pattern" to compare with your original paint. I'll be glad to send them out early next week.

 

Here are links to pictures of the test pattern. I was able to get it done before leaving town.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74334622@N00/437868626/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74334622@N00/437868634/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74334622@N00/437868656/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74334622@N00/437868670/

 

Two test patterns were sent out to forum members so far. Anyone else interested in receiving one to compare against their original engine paint? Any comments about the comparison against my valve covers in the above post?

 

PM sent.

 

dang
looks dead on to me Steve

 

Thanks for responding Jim. Looks good on this end too but I'm reserving further comments until others have a chance to respond with their own comparison using the test patterns.