What is the best way to refinish air cleaner assembly? (1 Viewer)

[Vulcan]

I have a 2F air cleaner I plan to have stripped to bare metal and refinish. It will go on a rebuilt 2F that is going to be painted black.

Is there a difference between painting it or powder coating it? I personally prefer the look of powder coating, but is it a bad idea to powder coat the air cleaner for any reason?

 

[thecrazygreek]

PC is the way to go...

While your at it, get other brackets done too. Does wonders for an engine bay.

 

[ColoradoFJ40]

Yep .PC is the way to go. Made my air cleaner look brand new

 

[Vulcan]

Thanks guys, PC it is!

 

[emac]

One regret I have in my restoration is powder coating. I PC the frame, which turned out awesome, but I wish I would have done a lot of the small stuff also. Another vote for PC!

 

[Racer65]

PC is better, but you will have to remove all of the gaskets, for which there are no replacements. That's why I painted mine.

 

[Ming89FJ62]

Just finished the AC on the 40. Stripped all the do-dads off. Sand blasted the housings and brackets, primed w/ self etching primer the painted w/ Eastwood semi-gloss chassis black. After putting all the emissions stuff back in it looks like it did 38 years ago.

The issue with PC is it will ruin the air filter gaskets which are NLA.

 

[ToyotaMatt]

PC is better, but you will have to remove all of the gaskets, for which there are no replacements. That's why I painted mine.

If u can successfully remove the gaskets prior to a restore , using a sharp flat scraper

they can be Re-Installed / Glued back down using Toyota's Black FIPG sealer ,( 00295-00103 ) its designed to bond to both rubber & metal cooling system parts like o-rings etc .....

the original toyota rubber cement gets hard and brittle and i have found easy to break free a good rubber gasket air cleaner box before

I have used this method many times both on my personal trucks and clients pjcts with Solid Success

its black and even matches the new powder Kote Too !

 

[Splangy]

A lot of folks have chimed in and claimed that PC is better than conventional solvent-based paints, but nobody has provided an explanation why.

FWIW, you can get the same look from paint if properly applied. Just don’t do what one of the other guys said he did and paint directly over self etching primer.

 

[77mustard40]

PC’d the piece of crap I got for free, can’t argue with the outcome. Still looks new several years later

 

[S4Cruiser]

Cleaned, sanded/wire wheeled mine and painted with Rustoleum semigloss black. PC likely would've been nicer but I wanted to keep the gasket materiel and decal (was in decent shape).

 

[numby]

A lot of folks have chimed in and claimed that PC is better than conventional solvent-based paints, but nobody has provided an explanation why.

FWIW, you can get the same look from paint if properly applied. Just don’t do what one of the other guys said he did and paint directly over self etching primer.

What neither powder coating nor a casual spray paint job will do is get down in the seam between the two parts of a Land Cruiser AC lid. There's just not the space in there. If you're going to be in mud or a really, really wet climate like a coastal rain forest I might suggest paint stripping and some sort of liquid rust removal followed by pouring paint down in the gap or maybe even some sort of POR type goop. Then you can sand/fill/paint the remainder of the lid with a rattle can. Specter used to sell new decals.

All that being said I powder-coated my lid but I had a complete set of new factory gaskets sitting on hand. I painted the lower half. I PC'd the lid because it gets handled a lot more when working on the carb, etc. I wanted it to be durable and powder is definitely more durable. Paint is easier to touch up on a lazy afternoon.