How to Fix a Paint Bombed Engine Bay (2 Viewers)

[FJ Corey]

I need suggestions here. What's the most efficient way to get this blue paint off?

My initial thought is to lightly spray with chemical paint remover all over everything and rinse it quickly to remove only the blue paint but not destroy any rubber or more sensitive materials. Do this 5-6 times and I think most will be gone. I feel like this will accomplish the job but there may be some collateral damage.

Any tips?

What I Have:

This is what I want:

 

[brian]

Gut and repaint

 

[charliemeyer007]

Methyl Ethyl Ketone Peroxide will eat cheap spray paint just by rubbing it with a wet rag. It will also eat your liver and brain cells if you don't take proper protections. Read and heed the MSDS

 

[Pierps]

I wouldn't try to strip the paint with your parts still installed (i'm assuming this is why you mention collateral damage). The biggest components that need to be stripped are your blower, valve cover, and air cleaner. Those really aren't difficult to remove for stripping and repainting.

Your water neck will be the most annoying because you'll need to drain some coolant, but even that's not that big of a deal.

From there, just some paint stripper and some patience. This is the kind of project you can chip away with, one part at a time.

 

[igotta40]

That’s a dump truck load of detail work, I don’t see any way around it.

 

[FJ Corey]

Looking like taking it all apart will be the way to go. I guarantee there’s other items I should address in there anyway.

 

[pb4ugo]

It only looks strange if you open the hood.

 

[FJ Corey]

It only looks strange if you open the hood.

Good point. Might just weld it shut. This thing’s hideous.

 

[red66toy]

Outside of taking the engine out for a full refresh. I say tackle it in smaller more palatable chunks. That way you can take breaks and it’s easy to get back to a functioning truck in between.

 

[Its me shaneus]

I would not use stripper with all the guts still in place.

Years ago I was tasked with stripping paint off of small aluminum aircraft fuselage brought in on a trailer. Company had a pressure pot applicator for aircraft stripper. Plane was masked but still had lexan windows, rubber weatherstripping and a full interior. I was told “get after it” (I was around 16 at the time).

Stripper ate the masking tape and the windows, ate the weatherstripping and ran inside to eat these really pretty red velour seats. Guy about lost his mind. Everyone involved should have known better.

 

[DirtDauberGarage]

It really depends one how good of a job you want to do and what kind of results you will be happy with. There are lots of threads on here of guys removing rattle can paint to expose the original paint underneath with pretty good results (paint thinner, goo-gone, etc.). Rattle can paint will come off with the right chemicals and some good old fasion elbow grease.

The fenders, grill, hood, blower motor, radiator, air filter housing, valve cover... are all pretty easy to get off and would make it easy to clean and repaint of needed. That would give you pretty good access to the firewall and you could try to finish the job without pulling the motor. My guess is this would give you a pretty good result if you took your time and paid attention to details and were OK with it looking decent but not perfect. This is what I would probably do.

If you want it to look factory the only option is to pull the motor, remove brake lines, etc. and paint. The good news is a fj40 is one of the easiest vehicles to do this on. It would be WAY harder on a FJ60 / FJ80 or something newer.

While you have everything apart, go ahead and detail the front frame and axle as well.

If you decide to do it, post lots of pics and let us see how it goes.

 

[Malleus]

^^^this

 

[Pin_Head]

Try power washing it first. Cheap spray paint on a poorly prepared surface might come right off.

 

[WildernessRimFab]

Agree with @DirtDauberGarage

Air filter housing, heater fan housing, valve cover, (possibly thermostat housing?).
Get those rattle bombed black and that would be a big improvement.
The blue engine block wont pop quite as much if you get some black in there.

Also, you can go ahead and get an early 2F valve cover as the F155 stamped steel covers are prone to leak.
(I had one for a 8-9 years until I bit the bullet, much happer with the early 2F version).

Good luck.

 

[ryanwk628]

I doubt whoever did that paint job removed anything, so you should be able to reach all the blue to repaint. Even easier if you take the fenders off.