Engine paint: what is painted? What is not?

[Brett]

I'm restoring a 1967 Mk1 Austin Cooper.
At the moment, I'm busy cleaning engine parts. For my project, I use for reference John Parnell's book. Regarding the engine, he says: "Engines were spray painted at the factory with the dynamo, starter motor, distributor and clutch slave cylinder already fitted. Items like plugs, leads, coil, starter solenoid, rocker cover name plate and patent plate were added afterwards."

I'm a bit surprised for the distributor as mine is completely original and I haven't found any paint on it but I must admit there was some green paint on the distributor vacuum unit.

Below are some pictures found on the internet showing fully painted engines for example.

Any experience to share? What about your engines? Should the distributor be painted?

If you have period pictures of brand new engines, I'd be happy to see them.
Thanks in advance for your help.




On this last picture, do you know what the white cap on the distributor is?

[floormanager]

Hi, I painted mine before reassembly. I did not want to paint all the nuts and bolts, so this is why I did it this way. Not true factory but it's what I wanted.

Engine.jpg

[12345678]

I just pulled my ‘67 998 cooper and the distributor/ vacuum advance are not painted.

[Oneball]

The white thing is probably just a protective cover as there’s no cap and leads, they’re B series though, some with smog pumps, not sure what they’d be destined for though. Were Austin saloons still going to the USA by then?

[Brett]

The white thing is probably just a protective cover as there’s no cap and leads, they’re B series though, some with smog pumps, not sure what they’d be destined for though. Were Austin saloons still going to the USA by then?

I've watched the video, they're not B series, they're Austin/Morris 1100/1300 engines.

[Brett]

I just pulled my ‘67 998 cooper and the distributor/ vacuum advance are not painted.

That's strange. My 1967 Cooper had some green paint on the vacuum advance but not the distributor, which is original according to the date stamped on it.

[Peter Laidler]

This very subject is probably the MOST talked about subject on the forum over the years - and recently too. To save a lot of info being repeated over again, might I suggest that you look up painting engines. There's pages of it for you to digest..............

[timmy201]

My original distributor had a splash of green on the bottom

[Oneball]

The white thing is probably just a protective cover as there’s no cap and leads, they’re B series though, some with smog pumps, not sure what they’d be destined for though. Were Austin saloons still going to the USA by then?

I've watched the video, they're not B series, they're Austin/Morris 1100/1300 engines.

You’re right heater take off is on the head. Still wonder what cars the smog pump ones were going in?

[mk1]

As has already been said, this is one of the most ridiculous debates that regularly raises it's head here & everywhere else that more than 1 mini owner are gathered together.

The engines were painted exactly as THE PICTURE FROM THE FACTORY ABOVE SHOWS!

The reason that the Dizzy rarely has any green paint on it 50 or 60 years after the event is that the distributor has been changed or the paint has fallen off the alloy. ALL distributors were painted from new!

Like engine paint colour there is absolutely NO MYSTERY WHATSOEVER! The facts are known & there can be no reasonable debate. But that won't stop people thinking that their low mileage / barn find car MUST be exactly as it left the factory. Chreist! There are still people who claim that the gearbox & clutch housing weren't painted!

This is how an engine was painted when it was new.

engines.jpg

What more evidence could ANYONE need than a film taken in the Factory during production?

See the entire film here:

https://mk1-performance-conversions.co. ... media.html

PS. Sorry I came over so grumpy, I have calmed down a bit now

[Peter Laidler]

It''s not being grumpy Mark....... There's two reasons why this question above all is constantly being raised. 1) someone wants a different answer or 2) they don't want to search back into the previous forum pages.

[mk1]

And in all fairness, Not knowing the answer or where to find it is a reason too.

It doesn't take much finding though.

M

[Gray]

I also find it strange that people also seem to leave the 2 end castings on dynamos naked alloy.

[mk1]

Same reason, on old casings the paint drops off the alloy, but sticks better to the steel. Logic is always the same, it "MUST" always have been like that.

[surfblue63]

You’re right heater take off is on the head. Still wonder what cars the smog pump ones were going in?

My guess would be the Austin America that was sold in the US, Canada and Switzerland

http://www.austinamericausa.com/




.

[Oneball]

My guess would be the Austin America that was sold in the US, Canada and Switzerland

http://www.austinamericausa.com/




.

Thanks, didn’t think we’d have still been sending them tiddly stuff by then!

[Brett]

Thank you all for your answers.

I just want my car to be as close as possible from when it left the factory.

I did make a research on the forum. Sorry if I made you grumpy.

[timmy201]

If you use google to search the forum it will bring up results for the “common words”

Type site:mk1-forum.net and then add your search terms

Eg:
site:mk1-forum.net engine paint

[mk1]

Sorry if I made you grumpy.

Don't worry, it's an almost permanent state of affairs nowadays

[AndyPen]

I think many of us are a certain (grumpy) age