VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 !931 Engine Paint Colors

I have a 1932 2 Door Sedan that I am restoring and am current painting engine.

What is correct Engine color, and to you know a source to purchase.

Also I intent to paint intake and exhaust & intake manifolds with high temperature paint, what would correct colors be.

Colors

1) Engine
2) Intake Manifold
3) Exhaust Manifold

Thanks for your help.

The Filling Station is the only place that has the correct blue/gray color for engines. The intake & exhaust were attached to the engine when the engine left the assm. plant. They were all the blue/gray except the carb, generator, starter & fuel pump which were installed after...Joe

Yes The Filling Station !!

I bought some to do my Valve Cover, Oil Pan, and Push Rod Cover. Perfect match to the Engine Block. I bought the Spray/ Rattle Cans FS-359. They also do Pints FS-119P & Quarts FS-119.

No Complaints here.

Shot of Cover

While a good quality engine paint will hold up for a while on the intake, not so good on the exhaust, and probably back in the day the factory paint was off the exhaust manifold by the time the owner got the car home. If you don't like the rusted/natural look for exhaust manifold, you may want to spray the exhaust with "Header Paint" from a rattle can, comes in a dull black, I used it on mine and they look the same after 500 miles, makes a nice uniform finish, like black cast iron. I "cooked" mine in the kitchen oven as directed when the better half was not around!

Hello,
What was the range of years that Chevrolet used the blue/gray engine paint color? Has anyone tried high temp manifold paint and then covered it with the blue/gray to see if the blue/gray would last longer? Did it work? Remember, oven baked cookies made before curing out the manifolds taste better. Cheers

The dark blue gray engine paint was used from 1929 thru 1953 on passenger engines. Several more years on trucks.

Engine paint typically lasts longer if a primer is applied first. High temperature paint will last longer on the exhaust manifold but never tried to overcoat with another color so can't give verified experience. I use a stainless manifold paint which looks like bare cast iron for many years if properly applied and cured.

I've used high temp stove paint (made for wood stoves) with good success. There probably is one that is close in color to the blue/gray but I think that the natural cast look while not factory correct looks better. I doubt if many of us have ever seen a factory color painted exhaust manifold unless you worked at a dealership. Maybe the next time I'm at a dealership I will check under the hood of a new car to see how they look in todays showroom.

The dark blue gray that F.S. has is it the same as Bill



Hersh gray? It seems a lot lighter in color?

Bills seems a lot lighter

The paint (lighter in color) that Bill Hirsch sells is incorrect. The correct Dark Blue-Gray is available from the Filling Station.

At one time Bill Hirsch sold his lighter universal gray and also a dark blue gray. Last time I called, talked to his son was told (unpleasantly) that they didn't have the dark blue gray and their paint was the correct color. All that after some of us spent years convincing Bill that the darker color was correct. Needless to write, don't do business with Bill Hirsch any more.

Apparently making a sale to the naive hobbyist overrides providing the correct restoration product for the consumer.

Skip, That statement goes a lot farther than you might think...Joe

Actually Bill Hirsch and apparently also his son are still convinced that their "universal" gray that allegedly Pinky Randall and other Chevrolet "experts" told them some 40 years ago was the correct color. When I talked to him, several times, he finally told me he would stock both colors as most of his customers would still want a paint to match the painted parts they already had. He was also concerned that they would ship the wrong paint to a customer and therefore incur additional expense or bad feelings. I got the impression that he was only stocking the dark blue-gray so we would no longer bad mouth him for selling an incorrect engine color. Apparently that is no longer a concern or enough of a concern to stock two different colors. I also don't believe he thinks the non-Pinky experts know what they are talking about. That includes a bunch of dedicated VCCA members that worked hard to come up with the most accurate engine color and Steve who agreed to make it available.

The universal gray that Bill Hirsch sells works fine for painting gas meters since it is almost an exact match, but that stuff is not even close to being the correct color for the Chevrolet engines.

If you want to paint your gas meter then order the paint from Bill Hirsch. If you want to paint your Chevrolet engine the correct factory color then order your paint from the Filling Station.

LMAO

Talking about gas meters, our local gas company has been going around the last month cleaning up and painting all our gas meters !! They used to be this awful faded green color, but guess what color they are now ??

Yep, you are right they are now Gray, but not a light gray, it is actually a dark blue-gray very close to the Chevrolet Gray on my 1929 Engine !!

I have seen a lot of pre-war Chevrolet engines painted the light gray and I bought some to touch up the engine on our 32 when we got it home. Well, my engine was a darker gray, much darker. I called the FS and Steve sent me a can of spray along with a pint to match. When I used it on our engine, you could not tell the difference from the original paint!!!! How do I know that the paint is the original? No layers, just one color. So, my question is, why even sell the light gray in the first place? Where did Bill Hirsch and his folks come up with it and why?

Mac

With Bill Hirsch selling the a product that is not acceptable as the correct color, Why do we accept his advertising in the G & D ? I could see accepting it for anything other that Engine Paint. But then they may sell it to unsuspecting people if they ask if they have it.

was surfing the web and noticed that Eastwood has an Ceramic Engine Paint in Chevrolet Gray 1929-52 !! Can be seen by clicking HERE.

Details:
Eastwood sets the standard in high temp engine paints!
…Super durable, utilizing ceramic nanotechnology
…Protects engine and resists chips, chemicals and heat
…Withstands temperatures up to 650 F
…Provides a beautiful factory-look finish
…One quart covers approx. 40 square feet
…For added durability and gloss use Eastwood's activator 21854Z

Anyone try this ?? Would like to know how the color compares, and as long as it meets the rest of Eastwoods Quality Products, should be a Great Paint !!

Lycoming airplane engine grey seems to be pretty close.

So here is a little story for all!!!

So in about 1972 or 1973, my dad painted the engine of your 32 roadster with Bill Hirsch Paint, and I know this because we still have the cans.

Also my great friend Ardie Overby's friend who was doing a 31 cabriolet also painted his engine about the same time or even earlier then my dad painted our engine.

The funny part....they are both a very dark gray, almost the same as the color that the Filling Station is using.

Then came along Chev's of the 40's.....and one of our members in the Portland/Vancouver area helped to supply them with a formula to have there paint mixed which I would call very close to correct. This would be some time in the early 80's I would think.

About the mid 80's I would think, someone on the east coast told, or got Bill Hirsch to change his Gray paint to what he could buy from any parts store, which is a Ford gray engine paint I think. Not sure who this is, but most of the issue comes from the east on the lighter gray.

So I would also stay away from Bill's paint and buy my engine color from the Filling Station or Chev's of the 40's. But a few years back, I need some paint one weekend and since I live only 5 miles or less from Chev's of the 40's I went down to buy some paint. They brought out can of Bill Hirsch light gray paint....I told them they could keep that [bleeped]! And wanted what they had mixed for years, they had no clue what I was talking about. So I drove down to the Filling Station.

They as Chip said, a few years ago I found out that Bill Hirsch was selling both colors....and then heard that a very big name in the club was asking about engine color. He was trying to say that east coast cars and west coast cars might of had different colors used on there engines.

Anyway....long story short, we need to have our judging committee make a call on the color of gray and put an end to all this and tell people what is and is not the correct color.

OK, I'm going to jump in and then take whatever criticism comes after.

I have read about every thread there is about engine paint color. Obviously, the consensus was to buy paint from the Filling Station. I did. When it arrived, It was in a PPG labeled can. I called my local PPG jobber to inquire what it was. They had never heard of that particular PPG brand.

I called the Filling Station and asked for a technical data sheet for the paint. When received, it noted that a reducer and a catalyst were needed. I called my local PPG jobber back. They told me that the paint was obsolete and that they couldn't even get those catalysts and reducers any more.

I called the Filling Station back and they gave me the number of their local PPG jobber who mixed their paint. The jobber told me that, yes, they knew it was obsolete, yes, it really should have that reducer and that catalyst added, but I was on my own to find them.

I sent the Filling Station's paint back to them. In all fairness, they were very prompt in refunding my purchase price and shipping both ways.

Things like this are why I don't have any of my cars judged by marque clubs. If I ever get this '32 Chevrolet finished, I will be happy to take it to VCCA events, but will never have it judged.

I have several vehicles that have received AACA first junior awards and one with a Senior award. (One Hudson, one Studebaker). The Hudson club does no judging, and I have never had any of my Studebakers judged by the Studebaker club.

Tom

The OP is about four years old , That being said since you have resurrected it i will add my opinion. Due to the age of any original paint whether applied or still in the can there has been considerable time for normal color change due to multiple possible reasons that would be best explained by someone involved in the paint industry. With todays modern equipment a paint spectrophotometer can analyze the color we see but there is no way to look at it 60-80 years ago. So I think the judging committee should pick a color that they believe is closest to what it should be-have paint chips made- and use that as a basis going forward. I may be wrong but I think almost any paint supplier today can match a paint with the current available analysis equipment. Unless someone has the original engine paint formula AND original materials to mix a new batch we will not know exactly what the paint color actually looked like 60-80 years ago.

In all my years of judging I never saw a case of the engine being "judged" the incorrect gray color.That is from the extra light to the darkest gray.

Hey Tom,

First off, you have my number and should call me. I can help you with the paint that you have or can buy at your local PPG shop.

Second I also know someone well within PPG that can maybe help with a replacement catalyst, I have used that paint with just normal enamel reducer and it worked just fine. At one time Chev's of the 40's was just as close as the Filling Station. Then they quite mixing the paint themselves and went to Bill Hirsch which is the wrong color. I have also been told that Hirsch has a darker color gray now because so many people have complained.

I would also like to make a point, your point about "why I don't have any of my cars judged by marque clubs" is very true and a lot people don't understand that. And thank you for saying that! Andy, Stan (VCCA friends) and I have been talking about this very issue for a few months.

So Steve D., part of the problem with a spectrophotometer is the quality of them, the small hand held ones which paint shop's have are not as good as the bigger ones which labs have. Also they require to be calibrated every year so the L, A, B values are correct. Even a spectrophotometer can have an off day, in my industry LAM Research requires the Sky White to have a Blue tint to it, but it can also have a Yellow tint and still pass the spectrophotometer which we use. Just one of the values can be off and still pass but be a completely different color.

Also to another point, I do have a color for the Blue/Gray which Chevrolet used from 29 to 53. The problem is I can't find any reference to it, I have been looking so I can present it to the club as here is what the correct color should look like. I found it a few years ago in a 1932 Chevrolet Service Bulletin. It is DuPont gray #86 if I remember right. It was from there standard line of paints.

And also as the Judging Committee Chair, I do like you comment about picking a color and making color chips! Would you like to be on the committee Steve?

Thank you,