Help Please on original exhaust

[da Vinci Dan]

Thanks to many of you already for the help to this point - especially KNS for the NOS cadmium hardware!

I was under the impression that the exhaust left the factory as stainless covered in Cosmoline. After a thorough scrubbing, I am seeing what looks like very durable Grey paint. Does anyone know the name, color or source for this paint?

Am I correct in thinking this was the original coating followed with cosmoline? I am guessing the muffler was just left rust as there is no indication of paint on it anywhere.

[Arlo911]

Hi, I think Stoddard has a paint that comes close to the original gray.

[gazzerr]

They are painted steel. I used the Stoddard gray paint. It works well. After it gets hot it changes color a little bit but it looks good.

[RedCoupe]

There was a lot of cosmoline used to protect sheet metal, but I can’t believe that any was purposely used on the exhaust system. Smoke, smell and chance of fire. On my cars, all the greasy residue on the heat exchangers came from the engines.

[Solamar]

I had mine ceramic coated. So far the coating is holding up wonderfully (~9k miles).

[da Vinci Dan]

Thanks all - Never saw that on Stoddard before.

[eastbay]

Yes, no problem painting the heater system.

[da Vinci Dan]

Update: I ordered the paint from Stoddard today.

Here is a comparison between Yellow Zinc:



And NOS:




I don't think the pics do this Cadmium plating justice. It really is beautiful.