77 308 a-arms: Powdercoating--What is it, and why do it?

Greg,

powder coating is a powder that is sprayed on to a part then heated to cure. Basically baked on. The parts need to be prepped first by sand blasting them. The finished look is very good and does deter corrosion. Any powder coater can do this for you. We powder coat over 500 pcs. of product a day.

It would probably cost more to ship it to Ohio than the process would be worth if done locally. I would just grab a local phone book and check it out. There will be powder coaters that specifically do automotive parts.

Good Luck.

 

Powdercoating is an alternative to paint but works much the same...the pieces are covered in a powder and heat baked finished......

I go with Satin Rustoleum myself but that's not very expensive OR time consuming......LOL!

Maybe others will chime in and show me the error of my ways........who's doing your disassembly and reinstall???

 

It is also much more chip resistant. We use this process on our surgery lights, can't have paint chips dropping into the operative site!

 

Just redid all the upper and lowers on my Dino, stripped, primed and then used Satin Rustoleum.

Considered powder coating, but my mechanic was anxious for the parts. Satin rustoleum black matched the factory look, exactly.

I did get my wheels powder coated, and they have held up remarkably well.


DM

 

Verell and I powdercoated my rear A arms last winter when I did a suspension rebuild. It was a pain in the butt sandblasting the arms, but the powdercoating itself was pretty easy and they came out nice. If the archives are ever up again, you can check out the pictures of the process. We actually did the powdercoating at Verell's house. He has an old kitchen oven in the garage and his own powdercoating gun. It's pretty easy. The sandblasting is the hard part. When I do the fronts, I probably won't go to the hassle. I'll just clean the arms up and re-paint them!

Birdman

 

Birdman - did you consider chemical acid dip on the suspension members? I just took my doors in to have them dipped for stripping. The chemical process will destroy any rubber, plastic, fiberglass, etc. But steel members should not be a problem (I assume that the suspension members are steel).

I have a cabinet sand blaster, so I can do either. The cost of chemical dip stripping is not prohibitive, and if the sandblasting is as much of a pain as you describe, perhaps the chemical dip is a better approach. Your opinion is appreciated.

This company in Garden Grove, California, will dip the entire car. However, any fiberglass will be destroyed. As you know, much of the car's wheel well, instrument area, trunk, etc., is made of fiberglass. This fiberglass can be removed, but likely more trouble than its worth.

Thank you for your input.

Jim S.

 

What about coating the Cam Covers. Will the process warp the cast Aluminum on older cars. Should you do the inside too?Does the wrinkle finish look good?

 

Dipping is usually only done to the shell of the car. In other words during a ground up restoration. Remove everything, and I mean everything, then send it to be dipped. It will give you a bare metal finish free of rust or any other contaminants. But, have your ducks lined up if you do this. Once you have it done it doesn't take long for surface rust to show up on the bare metal. Do it and have the paint booth/body shop booked in advance. They'll still have to do prep work to the body but, they won't be working on top of other paint work.

Here is a good primer on different paint removal choices.
http://www.scottgrundfor.com/ideas/paintoff.html

 

No, I had never heard of that. I would definitely consider that instead of sand blasting!

 

Glassman, Verell knows more about this, but I have seen wrinkle-finish powder coating done on the intake plenum on John Wise's QV rebuild and it looked excellent. I'm sure it would work fine and look fantastic on the cam covers. You definitely wouldn't want to do the inside though.

Birdman

 

My A-arms are about to go to sandblast then powdercoat. Having had LOTS of experience with spray can applied paint I can say without a doubt that powdercoating is much stronger and more durable than spray paint. They both look the same right away but down the road is where the difference shows. Powdercoat is very resistant to chipping and can be powerwashed clean to look like the day it was applied.

You will probably find that most powdercoaters charge a minimum fee (less than $100) and your 8 arms will fall under that fee. When you look at the cost of approx 3-4 good cans of spray paint plus prep time and materials, going the powdercoat route is much better. My .02

 

Spray painting is a reasonable finish, after all, that's what Ferrari shipped on the a-arms.

However, for spray painting to hold up, you've got to strip all remnants of the old finish off, put on a good coat of self-etching primer (SEM makes a good spray can one). Then spray several coats of the finish.

The work is always in stripping the old finish. Doing it right takes time. In spite of what Birdman says, sand or other media blasting is about the cheapest & fastest way to strip & clean a metal surface for refinishing. Chemical stripping is also reasonable if you have a stripping service within reasonable distance.

I prefer powdercoating as it's a tougher, more chip resistant finish. I find that it's actually less total work to powdercoat than to paint.

The one negative for powdercoating vs paint is that powdercoating is typically slightly more porous than paint, thus does not provide quite as much protection in salt spray tests. This can be overcome by applying a 2nd coat over a partially cured initial coat. The 2nd coat will flow out well & more thoroughly seal the surface.

In the real world of most Ferraris, I believe that chip resistance is a big win for powdercoating over paint, even in a corrosive (humidity, water, salt, etc.) environment. Once small bits of gravel, sand, etc. on the roads chip the paint it will actually let the underlying metal corrode faster than will powdercoating's slightly higher initial porosity, but higher chip resistance.

Also, most Ferraris don't tend to get driven in corrosion promoting environments in the first place.

BTW, powdercoating is really really tough. I've had to try to remove some when I managed to blob the surface while having trouble with my powdercoating gun. Tried sandblasting. It just dulled the surface, but WOULD NOT STRIP IT! I ended up having to bake the parts at 550 degrees for several hours to break down the powdercoating so I could sandblast it!!

BTW, Birdman, remember we were having clogging & media feed problems with my blast cabinet, that's why blasting your A-Arms took so long. Once I got hoses that didn't kink, and a reasonably dry air supply my sandblasting sysem works lots faster.

BTW, many auto machine shops & the larger NAPAs have a media blasting and/or chemical stripping service.

 

I find that powder coating takes no more time than painting and I powder coat everything. When I paint, I still take time to prepare the part for paint, usually by glass beading, so after glass beading its just as easy to powder coat than paint. When in a hurry, powder is much nicer, I can glass bead, powder and cure in less than an hour and have the part back on the car where if I painted it, I would still be watching the paint dry. I also like no paint fumes in the garage.

Do be careful though, I once powdered a non-Ferrari valve cover, the oil filler neck was soldered on the cover and while curing in the oven, it fell off. Took forever to clean up that half cured powder and then braze the filler neck back on. I learned to check the parts to make sure they can take the heat.

 

If one has a very permissive spouse, would it be ok to use the kitchen oven in terms of smell, dripping (?) or whatever?

 

I used the Eastwood corroleess rust treatment and chassis black, I have heard the same about cracking of powder coated arms but I was worried as I was unsure on which process to do with the bushings welded in, so I bead blasted,
mounted bushings taped them off, then painted. However, I would try powdercoating. I have a friend that SWEARS by the por 15 stuff, however thwe instructiuons were confusing so I gave the stuff to him he acheives really good results with a brush and the stuff is supposedly indestructable????
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POR 15 is great stuff, have used it several times. Whenever I restore parts like the suspension arms I always sandblast them. Just sandblasted a set of calipers a couple weeks ago and will sandblast most of the suspension of a car I am rebuilding now. It is the way to go. If anyone is nearby I would be happy to help you out with blasting if you need it. I always prefer powder coating to anything else but POR 15 is probably a good second.

 

P0R15 or Corroless are both good alternatives. Should have mentioned them earlier.

I've used POR15 & it's very tough. Also stays slightly flexible. 3 coats of the semi-gloss black would be a good finish for A-arms. Possibly even superior to powdercoating as POR15 would be both chip resistant and completely non-porous. Just would take a while to do due to the multiple coats w/ several hours drying time between them.

Haven't used Corroless, but it seems to have characteristics similar to POR15.
(Eastwood claims it's better, but that's one heck of a claim as POR15 is really good.)

- Verell (via Birdman's computer)

 

No, you dont want to do it in the house and you can't use a gas oven either. At least that is what Eastwood and other powder suppliers say. We remodeled the kitchen and the wife got a new stove, the old one went into my garage. As the powder cures, it does give off a unpleasant odor for maybe 5 minutes but its not bad and it lasts a very short time.

As far as flexing, I powdered the leaf springs on my 1934 Singer and the powder has held up with no signs of any problems, if it can handle the leaf springs it surely can handle the a-arms.

 

The post was about powder coat cracking if used on the springs, not the A-arms. The a-arms should have very little flex, so don't worry about that.

Think powdercoating would be OK on the springs, but I KNOW POR15 would be.

 

I am restoring a 78 308 and I would love to know where in Garden Grove that Company is that does the Acid Dip.
How advantageous would it be to have the doors, the trunk lid and the engine lid acid dipped as they are easy to remove and the rest of the car done in a different manner, would that make sense?

Thanks,
Helmut