My attempt at cleaning up the engine bay of the ‘S’ I am getting back on the road.
It’s not quite as bright in the flesh and puts the outside to shame 
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Hello there,
Paul M Novak, as your in Southern California try going to a Dollar Tree and getting some LA’s totally awesome cleaner. I learned about it after watching this gentleman cleaning his alternator below.
It’s significantly cheaper than simple green (I do like that smell though) and it works very well if you let it soak in for a bit.
I still blast things like bolts and nuts after with brake cleaner as I tend to be a loctite blue abuser!
Robin O’conner - nice engine bay! Single stage or base coat and clear?
plh
c.d.s
Base and Clear. Couple of coats on each.
Beautiful work. _However_The red over spray, that appears on the exhaust in your photo, drove me crazy! No one will ever see it, but………… It’s sort of like, why it’s a good idea to always wear clean underwear in case you end up, unconscious, in the ER. You never know who’s going to be looking down there. 
Keep up the good work.
Phillip
it’l burn off with the first fire up.
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Decades ago, I met a guy in my business at the time. He worked with a local salvage yard. The yard operator made trucks from several to be used mostly by the "beet haulers’. Then to a painter with considerable talent. he made the assembled parts look great. One method was to paint the exhaust manifold. Of course, the paint burned off rather quickly. But, it left them in a deep rusty red. Quite attractive…
My lump’s Ram horns got that treatment. they still look good…
Carl
Carl
I think Jaguar used to coat the exhaust of the XJ with aluminium paint.
My Leyland marked resonator certainly is. And the area on the headers that was coated (by me) with aluminium spray from the can has held up perfectly over the last several months of driving.
The sensible thing to do would be to repaint the exhaust system with aluminium paint. It might even do something about heat - just a little?
Won’t burn off, looks excellent and helps a little against outside corrosion.
David
That would be the obvious assumption. Don’t bet the house on it. I recently replaced the bumpers on my coupe and during the process, I noticed red overspray coated on the mufflers. This was done by a paint shop in a recent respray job. Took me two hours of work but now my mufflers are “clean” again.
Phillip
That far back, paint often does not burn off: as close the engine as the picture shows? It’ll be gone in 10 minutes!
I used an aluminized spray can on the down pipes of my lump. it has remained the same color. Never got to do the rest of the new pipes from the down pipes back to the original jaguar mufflers. Lat time I was down and under. No rust, Still mild steel. No SS used…
Drat, I wanted to take the jaguar to market this AM. Days of inactivity. Not quite enough voltage to crank. Merely lights on and loud relay clicks… It is on the smart charger. but, sop is the foul weather !!!
Carl
Your cold’s not enough to defeat a good battery: sure your battery isnt just shot?
I am thinking of coating my rust colored downpipes with a high temp paint in either black or silver
purely for appearance, I think it will offer an improvement and cant see anything against it
(other than a couple of hrs prep)
Paul:
For sure. even the night temps are far from being the low volts reason.
The battery is probably marginal. But, when the car is used regularly, it is fine.
At times days of no start and it is fine and fires right up. and at others not quite.
I suspect an additional complication is an intermittent drain. More than the TC, radio and PCM.
I’ll check ;later. It got a good log charge.
But, not over night. Touchy about unattended electrics…
Carl
Today I reached another major milestone in my engine transplant project. I completed all of the engine bay restoration and painting and today I installed the donor engine into my 1984 XJ6 Vanden Plas. 
Things went very smoothly with the engine installation but I still have a lot of restored parts to install before I will be ready to start the car up and drive it. The first three pictures show how the restored engine bay looked right before I installed the engine. The fourth picture shows me lifting the donor engine off of my engine test stand with my engine hoist. The fifth picture shows the engine as I am placing it in the engine bay and the final picture shows the engine in the engine bay after I tightened up the nuts on the engine mounts securing it into place The rear of the transmission is temporarily being supported by my transmission jack until tomorrow when I plan connect the propeller shaft, install the transmission mount, and start installing all the rest of the parts that I have cleaned, polished, painted or replaced.
Paul
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As good as new.
Very nice job Paul !!
Aristides,
Thanks. I can’t wait to get the engine running and this car back on the road.
Paul
Very nice Paul. I like the workshop you seem to have too. Is that a vintage gas pump in the background?
Are you using the standard FI intake? That’ll be fun, gettin’ all the bottom nuts on, in situ!
Looks GREAT! I wont go to the huge lengths you have, in making the engine look nearly perfect, for my Jeepster, but I cannot wait to get mine somewhat cleaned up.
Wow!
Are you keeping the air pump?
Rob
It’s not all that bad, actually. You just reach underneath and work by feel. Gotta hold your tongue just the right way, though 
Cheers
DD
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