Can anyone tell me the secret of how to stop petrol attacking the paint work on your engines ?
Do you have to use a particular brand ? Do you have to put a hardener in the paint ? or do you have to bake it on ?
Even when the paint is allowed to age I still get this problem. I have tried all sorts of paint.Any advice gratefully received. Thanks in advance.
Most air-drying, solvent based paints will be affected by petrol, which is effectively just another solvent.
Cyano-Acrylate based two-pack paints used to be quite good at resisting damage from fuels, but the real answer is probably to get them stove enamelled with a polyester-based paint.
I don't think that any brushing paints apart from maybe polyurethane-based varnishes and boat paints will be any good, and they are not very good with heat, so you are back where you started from. Peter
-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk
May be one of those 'myths' but have heard the following from more than one person now
-> the unleaded stuff is worse for damaging paint, it didn't happen with the 'old stuff'
Normal automotive paint will be OK for short times. The petrol tanks on both my engines are painted this way and neither seems to object to the occasional overflow or splash. I suppose it depends how long you leave the petrol there. The petrol does leave a slight deposit when it evaporates. This is easily removed with polish or T Cut during a routine clean up though. Do avoid over using T Cut on modern metal flake paints. My BSA is painted with cellulose and the B&S is painted with an aerosol. I think it's synthetic. My Mini was also painted with cellulose and that went through a lot of petrol spillage over the years and hundreds of thousands of hard miles. The paint was never damaged by the petrol. Lots of other damage but never petrol! I suppose the answer is to cure the leak and minimise the contact time.
John
Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.
Ask the community — no account required