57 engine paint colors

[paul Bowers]

the person rebuilding my 57 engine swears that the following parts should be painted (black) water pump pully,crankshaft pully, transmission cluch underpan, transmisssion inspection cover, and generator adjusting brace I have already painted them all chevy orange, would anyone please be able to tell me what color those parts should be painted thank you very much
Paul

[Mike E.]

Re: 57 engine paint colors

Water pump pulley and crank pulley should DEFINITELY be semi-gloss BLACK.
The rest you're correct on--there's a bit of discussion/disgreement on the generator arm.

[Loren L.]

Agree with Mike. *NM*

[John H.]

Re: 57 engine paint colors

The 1956 and 1957 Flint V-8 Engine Plant Engineering Bills of Material (detailed listing from Engineering of every single part in the engine assembly as-shipped) both carry a Note "F" that says the generator brace, #3704884, is to be omitted from all Corvette engine assemblies and will be installed at St. Louis. It was re-allocated to St. Louis for installation on Corvette engines due to shipping damage; it remained engine plant-installed on passenger car engines, as they didn't have the front engine mount bracket with the slot in it that positioned the Corvette brace sticking straight up in the air above the height of the engine shipping rack, and the brace could be pivoted across the top of the passenger car engines and re-positioned at the car assembly plants. Note the passenger car engine at the Flint V-8 Engine Plant shipping dock below with the brace "pivoted" out of the way. The Corvette brace was dip-primed black and installed on the engine dress line at St. Louis, as shown in the '56-'57 A.I.M.

[Roy B.]

Re: 57 engine paint colors

Great Pic , so was the exhaust manifold, Harmonic balance & pully and genny bracket painted as it is in the pic.for Corvette.

[John H.]

Re: 57 engine paint colors

Roy -

The balancer was painted on all engines, including the pulley that was riveted to the balancer; the later bolted-on pulley was installed at St. Louis. The generator "U"-bracket (bolted to the front of the exhaust manifold) was also omitted on '56-'57 Corvette engines per the "Note F" I mentioned above and installed at St. Louis along with the adjusting brace. Exhaust manifolds were at least partially painted on all engines until some point in the early-to-mid-60's when the process was changed to install them after the paint booth.

[Michael H.]

Thanks John

I think your picture will finally prove that the exhaust manifolds were absolutely positively painted orange along with the rest of the engine. And not just a mist coat. These things were loaded with paint, at least on the top and outer side. It would have been impossible to get decent coverage on the side of the cyl head without covering the manifold also. I have a few factory pic's (somewhere)of new 57, 62 and 63 engines that show the same amount of orange engine paint on the exhaust manifolds.

Just wondered if anyone noticed the orange paint on the metal portion of the spark plugs in Johns picture? They were installed prior to engine paint, but most of the porclan was covered with a mask that looked similar to a spark plug socket so the majority of the metal shell would wind up orange. This procedure continued until at least the mid 60's. I still have one of the original plugs that I removed from my new 64 and the orange paint is still quite visible.

Michael

[Michael K.]

Re: 57 engine paint colors

John, can you please tell me what color the front engine mount bracket should be. I have seen it both black and orange.

[Dave Suesz]

Seems to me the vintage photos in Noland

Adams' book clearly show the mount between the pump and block to be engine color. Even black & white photos are clear on this point.