The inside of my block was painted by the prior owner and I just found out tonight that it's peeling. I was wondering if these coatings are typically removeable? If it makes any difference, it's orange-brown in color. Would a hot-tank at the local machine shop remove it all?
Hot-tanking should get all of it off. I'd strongly recommend a very good and thorough cleaning after you get it back from the place that does it. Pull all the galley plugs and use something like a rifle cleaning kit, one with stiff metal brushes and long extensions so you can completely clean the oil galleys. Buicks have enough problems with oil systems without this kind of thing. I wouldn't leave anything to chance with this one. By the way, the reason the paint is peeling is because the block wasn't properly prepped for paint. Any oil at all and you can be sure the paint will come off. If you are planning to paint again, after it comes out of the hot tank and after the machine work is done, clean clean clean and clean some more. Use things like carb or brake cleaner for the final cleaning as it leaves no residue. Use a good primer and good paint.
Thanks. I called 2 local shops (KMotion is one of them) first thing this morning. They both said hot tanking would remove most of it. One shop uses caustic, the other a more enviro friendly detergent. One said the remainder of the paint would probably not pose a problem, the other said we could soak it in some thinner or aircraft stripper for a while before tanking it. I definately won't repaint it. I think it's a fine idea to coax some extra oil return to the pan, but only for someone that's gonna tear down the block routinely anyway...not for a lazy street-strip guy like me! I'm glad I decided to do the head swap when I did. There was a bunch of paint on the pick-up screen. If I had continued to run it this way, things could have been much worse. I still have to check bearings and such.
i've hot-tanked quite a few heads with this on them (glycol paint??) and all of them the paint ALL came off.So it should be the same with a block. I don't know what your machine shop does for plug removal, but where I co-oped we got as many plugs out as possible for the hot-tank process.
Glyptol This is a trade name paint used in electrical assemblies. It's designed for high dielectric strength (electrical insulating) applications. Guys use it inside motors because it's supposed to help oil drainback. Eastwood sells it. First I'd ever heard of a problem with it peeling, but then I've never used it either.
