[Lapkritis]

The weather was great here today... sun was shining and warm so I had the garage door open to let some light in and to motivate.

Fan cover is going to need the red paint completely stripped as it's bubbling up and flaking off. I expect the paint was not high heat capable... I plan to body match the shroud with engine temp (500*F) capable paint.



More interesting was the cleaning/disassembly I did today. The engine was quite the leaker and from many different places even though it had been sorted and resealed. I've learned to expect that it would be normal to leak in a place or two but this baby was snail trailing due to about every cylinder base leaking which didn't make sense... until today.
Here's why it's leaking... the last time the engine was rebuilt they powdercoated the case including the surface where the cylinder base seals. This would be the equivalent of powdercoating the deck of your watercooled engine block before putting the head gasket on and bolting down the head. Here you can see a curl of the powdercoat that was trapped between the gasket and case... oops!










Coming clean after a few hours with Wd40, brass brushes, shop rags... finished up with compressed air to get grime from behind the studs. I'm not going for concourse detail on this car as it will get driven so just cleaning up and getting as much of the loose powdercoat off as I can get to.