Posted by Matt Wilson on Thursday, January 16, 2003 at 6:45PM :
In Reply to: but did you blast or strip it ? or is it STILL painted ? ntxt posted by casebro on Monday, January 13, 2003 at 10:49PM :
No, I did completely strip it, although it was by accident. I foolishly thought that all of that paint inside was rust, because it was very much rust colored, and it was hard to tell with all of the caked-on grease. So I took it to my machinist and he dipped it in his hot tank. When I got it back from him, he said that was the toughest paint he'd ever seen, and he was unable to get it all off. At first, I thought, "paint??" but when I looked at it, I realized what he meant.
By having him dip the tranny housing in his hot tank, I had just created a whole bunch of work for myself, because now I had to painstakingly remove all of the remaining paint, which was loose and flaky. It took a LOT of scrubbing, sanding, chemical application, etc., to get the rest of it off. I did not have a sand blast setup at the time, so I could not remove the paint that way.
Anyway, I re-assembled the tranny with new and NOS parts, and with NO paint, because I was concerned that I would not prep the surface right, and then I'd have loose paint floating around in the gear oil. So I just left it as is, and so far I've had no probs. But like I said, I've only driven a couple of hundred miles and idled it for a few hours during that time, so only time will tell whether or not the cast housing will seep any oil. We'll see.
Matt