In restoring the appearance of the engine of my '56 XK 140, I need to remove the GOLD paint from the cylinder head (applied in an earlier restoration), in order to return to the ORIGINAL cast-aluminum color (which I believe was un-painted). I would appreciate any suggestions/information on the easiest/least expensive way to accomplish this. I would prefer not to have to remove the cylinder head for sand-blasting. Steel brushing is an obvious possibility but difficult and unsatisfactory so far. I wonder about using a paint remover/solvent for this job. It would require a paint remover that is safe for aluminum, and probably water soluble and brushable - to protect the rest of the paint in the engine bay. If anyone has experience with this or suggestions OR information re. a brand or source of an appropriate paint remover/solvent, I would greatly appreciate feed-back.

Jerry Ellison
Fayetteville, NC
XK140 OTS

Submitted by jagengines@yahoo.com on Mon, 04/04/2005 - 18:47

Jerry,
Chemical stripping a head is a real PAIN and then it has to be neutralized. You may want to consider "Soda Blasting" which can be done in the car with everything masked off...the head surface will be like new. I think companies like 'Eastwood' have small hand held kits/gun.
www.eastwood.com

Good luck,
Mike Leicester
Mike Leicester

Submitted by mcload@ev1.net on Thu, 07/22/2004 - 12:01

Jerry: You should be able to use laquer thinner to remove the paint. If it were me, I'd just paint over the gold with silver POR-15. Use two or three coats for complete coverage. Painting the head valley is a pain as you have to remove all the nuts, washers, the two lifting lugs, and the sparkplug loom. Then, you have to work around the studs with a small paintbrush. If you have gold paint on the heads just above the carbs, then it gets worse.
Good luck.

Patrick McLoad
1966 E-Type, Right-hand Drive Roadster