GS400 -78 engine painting

[MarkoGS400]

Hi!

I have now disassembled my Suzuki GS400 -78 engine and I'm thinking of painting the engine. Is it true that lower crankcase isn't painted but upper crankcase half is painted silver? How about sidecovers, cylinders, cylinderhead, starter cover etc. ?

Can I use sandblasting and then paint?

I would like to get it as close to original as its possible so what color code and paint I should use? Should I paint all the parts separately or put the parts together and paint all the parts at the same time?

[Nessism]

Yup, lower crankcase is not painted. Side covers are clear coated after polishing. Cylinders and head are reputed to be painted as well but on my bike the finish looks different than on the top crankcase half so I'm not sure.

For paint, PJ1 is reputed to make rattle can engine paint that look pretty good. I'd love to find some catalized engine paint for that extra durable finish (for a project I'm going to start), but don't know where to go for that.

[MarkoGS400]

Ok, thanks Nessism for the info!

I think that I'm not going to paint the engine at all because upper crankcase looks to be in quite a good condition.

I'm sorry but I dont speak english by my native language so could you explain what "clear coated" actually means?

I'm still thinking what I should do with the cylinders, cylinder head and side covers. As I said I would like to get it as close as original as possible so is there any close looks pictures where I could see what those should look like?

[Carmine]

"Clear coat" is a glossy clear transparent paint. Usually it is a second step after applying a "base coat" of colored paint, but for beautiful engines we want to show off, we will just use clear coat.

[txironhead]

If you can't find the PJ1 stuff, Dupli-Color Engine Enamel makes a couple of aluminum colors that look very close to the factory original, and it's very good paint. Sandblasting might be too agressive, it would be better to glass beadblast it. Make sure you blow out all of the leftover blasting media before you paint, and degreasing it will make the paint adhere better. 90% of a good paint job is in the prep work. If you can find someone who can steam blast it, that would be best.