The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop 235 valve cover engine paint (in spray cans)

Is there an after market spray can paint that is close in color to the factory color on the valve cover of a 235 engine?

I'm not finding anyone selling spray cans in the blue-grey color if that's what you're looking for. Although the engine paint I got from Jim Carter can be brushed on and looks good.

There is an automotive paint supply store in my town that can take a picture with a special camera they have and then duplicate the paint color. They can even put it in a spray can if you don't want a larger quantity. The match is near perfect. I had them do this for me a while back on a wheel rim I was painting. However, it's about $30 for a rattle can of paint. May just go that route. Thanks!

I took one of my Vette T-tops in to have them color match it with their camera, it wouldn't pick up the color well enough for him to be able to confirm it would match. I told him it was a 3 year only color and to check the books for the prior year (1977), he found the code and mixed it for me, perfect.

Bill Hirsch used to sell it in rattle cans but it's not listed on their website anymore. That's strange because they've sold every engine color in aerosol cans for decades at least up until a year or so ago because I bought some for another engine. I sent them an email about it. We'll see what they say.

If you go to the paint shop with or if they look up the code ask how many variants of that code they have .I bought a 30 dollar rattle can years ago and it did not match and when I asked about it they told me there were 4-6 variants of that coded colour. Was nice of them to tell me after .

I have done a fair amount of research on paint codes and very few are available except for exterior colors. I do recall the Bill Hirsch and Jim Carter used to list spray cans of engine paint. But now both only carry quarts of the engine color paint.

I just checked and The Filling Station still offers spray cans of engine paint: LINK. Although since they say it takes two cans to paint an engine, a quart can brushed on or with your spray gun would be a better deal.

Not exactly breaking news but here it is.

I received an email from Jeff Hirsch with Bill Hirsch Auto Parts. They no longer sell their high temp engine enamel in aerosol cans. It's available in quart cans only.

He goes on to say that it can be painted with a brush or applied with any type of sprayer. He recommends thinning with 10% xylene when used in a sprayer.

I have used their engine paint many times for difficult to find colors like Cadillac blue and Olds silver/green and it is a top quality product. Generally I use locally available Duplicolor or other readily available engine paints in aerosol cans for more common engines with equally good results.

They do carry Chevrolet stovebolt grey.