Engine compartment color

[Fishman]

I am repainting my engine compartment and the underneath of my hood. Since most of the paint is discolored (kinda gray), I have a question. Is the original black a semi-gloss or satin paint? And... was the same black color used on both the engine compartment and underside of the hood?

On a semi-related note... boy does the nose look long with the hood off! I took a tape measure: It's exactly 4' from the front of the engine block to the tip of the nose. For those of you that have never experienced the long nose of a C3... I parked the Vette evenly with our Tahoe, the seats in the Vette line up with the back seats on the Tahoe. Imagine driving any car from the back seat... that's pretty much what it is like to drive a C3.

 

[Tom73]

I am sure that the judging guides will give you specific colors for most all the parts, but keep in mind that Chevy was building cars for sale, not collectors, so the shade of black was never important to them. Generaly it was a semi-flat black but it came from the cheapest bidder. The suppliers would change throught out the year. Also different parts were painted at different locations, thus different paint and different painting techniques. So unless you knew what it looked like when new then you can never match it.

I generaly used Krylon Semi-Flat Black or Rustolume (sp) Semi-Flat Black. They look great to me.

It's exactly 4' from the front of the engine block to the tip of the nose.

That is why the C3 is a mid-engine car, the engine sets between the wheels, not over the axle.

tom...

 

[Fishman]

Thanks for the info Tom. Makes sense to me.

 

[KC-21]

Recently the alternator front bearing went out on my 81 and sprayed white grease on the underside of my hood, I don't know what that stuff is made of but I can tell ya that when I wiped it off it took the paint off too!!!! It just so happens that we were doing a car show that afternoon and the underside of my hood looked like s***! I thought, no problem, it looks like flat black so I'll just touch it up.......WRONG!!!!! I ended up at the local hardware store frantically looking for paint to match (not wanting to repaint the whole underside of the hood).
To make a long story short, I found that DeRusto Bar-B-Que Satin Black high temp paint matched perfectly. I repainted the stripe I had under the hood and all is well in Vetteland.

Hope this was some help, but I must tell you that the rest of my engine compartment is Gloss Black, just because that is the way I wanted it (someone had painted the air cleaner housing and the air intake chambers RED!!!!) (YUCK)

Later

KC