Date:         Wed, 16 Nov 2005 09:59:08 -0500
Reply-To:     Wil Haslup <wil@CHARMFX.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Wil Haslup <wil@CHARMFX.COM>
Subject:      Re: Ceramic Coat Catalytic Converter?
In-Reply-To:  <437B300B.2090308@comcast.net>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Ken Wilford wrote:

> Ceramic coating will disappoint on the purely aesthetic level.  It is
> almost worse to see a beautiful shiny exhaust system turn dull and rust
> than it is to just bolt the stock gray painted pipes on and see them
> rust.  At least the dull gray pipes never looked like anything in the
> first place :-)

I installed an entire exhaust on my '80 a few years back.  ...came as
black crossover, stainless cat., stainless muffler (I think as it has
not degraded) and a grey tail pipe.

As I started getting some rust I just took a wire brush in hand and
tried to clean it as good as I could on the van....then with some care
and some folded newspaper in hand to mask I hit the crossover and
tailpipe with black high heat paint.

This seems to clean things up and slows down the rust.  If you have to
hit it with a couple squirts every spring it improves appearance and may
help the pipe last longer...at least from the outside, though short
trips where the pipes don't get good and hot lets the water vapor
condense and lay in them rotting them from the inside.



--

Wil


-- http://www.charmfx.com/

"The time has come for someone to put his foot down...and that foot is me."
-- Dean Wormer, "Animal House"