Orange Paint

So I am painting the stuff that attaches to the engine orange to break the monotony of the blue. Below are the motor mount brackets, throttle cable bracket, fan pulley, and headers. Note that the headers are more of a pumpkin orange whereas the brackets and such are like a "hemi" orange. This is because that is the only color of orange header paint I could find. It can stand up to 1200deg F. Whereas the other orange paint can only handle up to 550 deg F.

Tonight I also installed the freeze plugs. I took each plug and put a generous amount of RTV around it and then pounded it in. I wasn't sure how far to pound them in, so I settled for "flush" with the block as my standard. I'll get pictures later, even though the installation knicked up my fine paint job of the unscratchable finish on the plugs.

Today I also got the motor mounts from Checker, even though I was waiting for "them" to come in the mail. When "they" came in the mail it was only one even though the description was for Motor MountSSSSS note the "S". I will be sending it back because their price was way higher than checker's for the same brand, I will still eat a little on the shipping though, but it will still come out cheaper from checker. From now on I will try to continue getting my parts from stores since it is so easy to tell them it is the wrong part and get them looking for the right one. Also if I swing by in the morning on the way to work, they usually have the part that I need by the evening.

I also learned a bit about stainless steel today, supposedly it is brittle and not the easiest steel to bend. You need to bend it with a mandrel bender. No one in Tucson has a mandrel-type bender, supposedly they are a big deal and cost around $200k. I have found three places in Phoenix that have them, but the place I have called so far was difficult because they could not speak English and said they charged $100/hour to bend the steel. Why do the illegals have a mandrel bender and a stainless steel engineering company doesn't?

Anywho, I will still run stainless straight back from the collectors to the mufflers, about 3.5 ft on each side. That will save me some pennies on buying up the aluminized tubing.

The other day I saw a CJ-5 that had been recently restored. It was a gunmetal blue with a fiberglass tub and even the engine was painted the same color as mine (yes I snooped around his vehicle in the parking lot at work). I left a note on it with my e-mail and this site, but no contact yet. They probably bought it like that and think I am a sucker. Whatever when they roll it and their rollbar rips off and the seat belts with it (three pt attached to the roll bar) we'll see who the sucker is then. Yes, I looked to see if their roll bar was tied into the frame, it is not, it is more of a showbar. Overall, you could tell it was some wimpy street jeep.

Anyways, on to the pictures: