Choosing the perfect hue for your engine build can be tricky. Not only does the color need to be perfect, it has to hold up to the hot, abusive environment of an engine bay–which rules out most coatings. For this 1970 GTO, the choice was obvious: it had to be Pontiac Metallic Blue, and the enamel had to come from our friends at POR-15. Follow along in this episode of Hemmings Garage, presented by POR-15 as we clean, prep, and paint the engine.
When the car first came home, it was a survivor–not running, but complete and intact. It had been stored in a warehouse in the high desert of California, was largely rust free, and packed its original 400/4spd combo. It didn’t run. I didn’t care.This was my high school bedroom poster materialized.
The plan was to leave the original patina intact, restore the mechanical bits, and return the goat to the road. But the plan–as plans often do–changed.
1970 GTO Restoration
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I ran a restoration shop for 35+ years. Most paint starts to deteriorate at about 300f [150c]. As we specialized in rare vehicles, we often had to find alternative paints. In the mid 1980s I talked to a local man who had worked for a large chemical company that manufactured paints. He said “just go ahead and use a good quality oil-based house paint in semi-gloss finish, and apply it with a fine hair brush. Clean off the surfaces of all grease & grime, and it should work fine.”
At that time I was finishing up an engine rebuild on my 1948 Packard Super 8 convertible, so I figured I would use it as a test case. I visited the local Sherwin-Williams paint store, showed them the color swatch for the green paint used on most Packards. They mixed up a quart of matching house paint, and I put 2 coats on the engine. It looked beautiful.
Now, almost 40 years later, it’s still presentable, and has not peeled or burned away except for a few small areas around the exhaust manifold, where the paint was singed slightly. It’s the same look of the original factory applied paint.