Engine bay paint.

reddiesel said:

I remember you asking this years ago ,what happened to the theory that the Zircon Engine Paint Finish
was just Zircon Blue without the top coat ? What did Jaguar say to the idea some had that the Zircon
Engine finish was a different Code to the Zircon Body finish ?
Speaking to some people in the trade I will try and bottom this out for you .
Finally without removing the engine how are you intending to apply this paint ?

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I have come back to this project a few times. Things I have learned. The Zircon Blue can be used in the engine bay but it has the same 'flecks' as the exterior coating. It matches really well but stands out as the finish is not flat. I spray small areas and as long as there are no adjacent areas to compare it to it looks good. So what I do now is use the exterior paint. Lightly sand off the shine/flecks then spray it with a mat finish lacquer. It looks good but its a lot of hassle if your only doing small areas. It also noes not really match the rest, ok only me would ever notice but you know my OCD in regards to the car.

I have also been in contact with a couple of companies that mix and fill spray aerosol cans. Asking them if they could actually just leave out the silver flecks but apparently not. I dont see why they cant but then again I dont fill aerosols for a living.

The paint will only be used for touching up not respraying the whole engine bay. Just one of my winter projects to get this sorted.

So any help you can give would be appreciated.

DevonDavid said:

Just a thought - if you go to B&Q or similar and get as many Dulux, Crown, Own-brand paint colour charts as you can (Dulux do lots of small "Blues", "Greens" "Yellows" etc type cards as well as the booklets, and try to find one that's as near as dammit to your engine bay paint, then - go to Halfords and see if there's a fairly exact non-metallic match from their range of car aerosols (using the card to judge the colour) I can't believe that there isn't a Ford "Azure Blue" or Peugeot "Parisian Blue" that would be suitable.
Might be a wild-goose chase, but won't cost anything unless you find something close, and even then, it's only a £10 aerosol.

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Been there tried that. Spent ages with a nice Halford guy taking out tins that looked close. Ended up with a tin of stuff that looked worse than spraying it with 'outside' spray, though on the tin it did look dam close. What I need is a bit of metal I can remove from the engine bay and take it into a paint sampling machine. The only parts I can think of to remove that are sprayed engine bay colour are the small bolts/screws right at the front just under the bonnet? Problem is I touched all those up with exterior paint a while ago, though you would never tell looking at them. Not only that there are no local paint analyzers near me. The closest one is some 25 miles away, the one who could "match anything" as long as I could get it off the car and take it inside.

Thanks for the suggestions though