The car is silver and where can i get aluma blast. It seems like it looks alot nicer painted. Was it painted from the factory?
Stock transmissions are not painted just bare cast aluminum. If you must paint it, Krylon cast aluminum spray paint works good on transmissions and aluminum intake manifolds.
I will second for Eastwood alumiblast. The factory did not paint the aluminum but it was treated with some type of aluminum coating for appearance. You will never get it to look correct by just cleaning it. It will always look like crap. Do not let a shop ever dip it in their crud tank as that makes it look worse and also takes the print of the ID plate. The Alumiblast will give it a factory appearance similair to new. There may also be a two letter stencil on it that is same letters as ID tag. I have not figured out how to reproduce that yet but I will.
What JW did to our concours cars was to tear down the TH 400 and the Muncie on the other all the way to the case. They were then bead blasted and they still look new. Painted trans cases look painted. But if it is not a courcours car it really does not matter.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. In person, I can spot a painted trans case pretty easy.. If it's painted all together, you loose the detail of the different color vent tube, trans line adapters and the steel band anchor pins... and heaven forbid they are painting the bolts and governor cover on resto.. Eeww.. I am pretty sure if you took a trans like this, and one that is painted sliver, and laid them side by side, and had 10 GS guys off the street look at them and pick out which on they wanted, they would pick the blasted one every time. The difference is person is quite striking. The dirty truth about this whole painting transmission cases is that most resto shops are really body shops, with enough mechanical knowledge to screw the big parts together, but they don't have the staff available to rebuild the trans, so they get whatever their trans re-builder does. And very few trans shops will invest the time to blast the case anymore, as that kind of pride in your finished product is fading quickly in America, where it's all about production and money making. The procedure for blasting a case, with first rougher, then really fine bead, takes a couple hours. The resto guys are kinda stuck, and break out the silver paint. It has become "accepted" but that doesn't make it correct. A light touch of clear non gloss acrylic over the blasted case, duplicates the "as cast" finish from GM, but the case has to be spotlessly clean for this to work. I am not aware of any coating applied by GM for corrosion protection, but I wasn't in the Turbohydramatic plant in those years, so I can't say for sure. Of course, if you have a hotrod, then sure, spray it silver or black... no big deal, but I will say that every trans I have ever sent out of here looks like this, except on the hot rod stuff I will paint the gov cover, speedo and modulator hold down clamps black, and omit the paint inspection marks. For me, it's about pride in my finished product, over making a few more bucks, by skipping the cleanup work, and painting it. JW
