As I said in a previous post, I'm probably doing this all backwards by starting at the bottom of the engine and working up, but I've made my bed and I'll be sleeping in it... So, starting at the very bottom I began by pulling off the oil pan which showed some signs of leaking around the gasket. Additionally, there was some rust on the bottom that I wanted to take care of before it got bad enough to leak.
Fortunately, I didn't have a single one of the 17 oil pan bolts give me a hard time and they all came out without much of a fuss. Getting the pan itself off was a bit of a challenge since it had probably been in place for close to 40 years. Because the pan is sheet metal, I had to take care when getting it off so I took a 5" spackle knife and gently hammered it between the block and the pan around the whole perimeter. I left a few bolts loosely in place in case it popped off too quickly for me to catch it. Overall it wasn't too bad and took about 15 minutes to free it up. The bottom of the pan had the last remnants of oil in it and I was pleased to see that I didn't find any metal shavings or anything but oil for that matter.Once I had it off I cleaned up both mating surfaces with a razor blade and brake cleaner and had both surfaces nice and smooth within a half hour. Next I removed the oil extraction hose and fitting and sanded the pan down and degreased the whole thing with more brake cleaner. I'm sure it is toxic stuff, but brake cleaner does wonders on grease and grime.
Once everything was cleaned and prepped, I shot 3 coats of VHT high temp engine enamel primer and let it cure. The next day I did 3 coats of VHT high temp engine enamel. I decided against using OEM Westerbeke red because:
- I had the VHT on hand and new cans (Chevy-Orange) are $18 at pretty much any auto parts store on the planet and are pretty close to Westerbeke Red
- OEM Westerbeke Red is $60 a can. The markup is insane and not worth it IMHO.
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