Hello all.

Does anybody use this or anything similar for their exposed aluminum engine parts?

Much Thanks ----- Dave

 

Not used this stuff but I once having polished my valve covers to a mirror finish and then sprayed them with high temperature lacquer to try to keep them from oxidising but the lacquer turned a brown colour and started to peel off. Obviously not a nice finish so it all came off and I now hand polish them every couple of weeks. Never found a solution I could use to protect them and maintain the polish.

 

I am a bit wary of using this product on hot surfaces I understand it is designed for cold use in water and salt based anticorrosion systems.
I tried using a high temp clear lacquer as did Cass and ended up with the same results.

 

Anodise or leave it alone. Polish as necessary.

 

I like Lanoguard and XCP. This is mainly on the basis of their smell and not being unsightly. They are better known in the motorcycle world than classic cars. For areas like aluminium cam covers (and brass door furniture), once it's shiny, an occasional polish with Brasso and a regular generous bee's wax are supposed to be the way to go. Anything that drys hard like a lacquer is only good on a surface that it can stick to, which limits capacity on polished metal. If you look at our cylinder heads and cam covers, Jaguar painted only areas with a rough finish.

 

Yes ~ Lanoguard is great. For hidden areas I prefer Valvoline's Tectyl range and they are the competition to us.

 

Great help, everyone. Sure do appreciate it. Can says extremely flammable. Helps to read things I suppose, though obviously not my strong suit.

 

David, I'm not sure that we answered your original question. Basically, most of us have little or no specific experience of Quicksilver. I'd not see the flammability necessarily as a limitation. The warning probably relates to the propellant and/or the solvent that makes the wax light enough to spray. If your main objective is the cam covers, once they have a good shine, I'd try bees' wax as a protective coating. It's cheap and easy to use and, applied with a cloth, goes only where you want. It's also ecological and sustainable - it's always good to let the wider public know how green we old car people are!

 

Thanks Peter. Yes you have, and I'm sure you're right about the propellant now that you pointed that out. Yes it's mostly cam covers.

How long does the beeswax hold up to the heat before you have to reapply it?
Love the green aspect. I don't expect that in any automotive forum! Here's to the ecologically/socially conscious!

Dave

 

I don't know how the beeswax survives on the hot cam covers. I've not got that far with my restoration. Nothing is going to be permanent, but, as I wrote before, it's cheap and easy and not messy - it won't mess up your shirt sleeves when you change the spark plugs. Back when the car was running, we wiped some machine oil on the cam covers when the car got a serious clean and polish, but it was to very little effect. I've learnt about beeswax relatively recently in other contexts. It's very good at protecting brass exposed to sun and rain and works on most metals. A while ago, I found out the toolbox of my Mk2. It had been sat untouched in the boot of the car over a couple of decades in storage and for long periods in humid environments; there was quite a lot of rust on the tools and the box. My first thought was to clean up the tools and strip and repaint the box. However, that would have been a load of work and the result would have probably looked too shiny and over restored. I settled for a light sand, paint everything with phosphoric acid, and finish with a generous polish with beeswax. The result is that the tools and box still show 60 years of use and patina (sounds like an antiques salesman), but cared for, well preserved, and ready for use. After a few months, they still look fine.

 

Anyone familiar with Renaissance Wax? Not sure how it would work on hot Aluminum.

 

@Peter3442 Ok thank you.
My tool kit box has all the wear you'd expect but looks to be clear coated over original paint & surface rust. Love the patina on it. Will put beeswax over that.
I'm more about preservation/"driver" than restoration, for myself.

 

Bees Wax and Renaissance wax - Finishes for Metal - I Forge Iron

 

@scrannel That seems to confirm my recent thoughts of beeswax immediately melting away at start up. Thanks for that.

 

Thanks. You probably saw this fun site!

Specialist Wax Suppliers | Candle Wax Supplier | Poth Hille (poth-hille.co.uk)

 

Wow, no I didn't. Never realized there are THAT many different types of, and applications for wax!

 

This has become very interesting. I'm thinking that XK cam covers might be just cool enough (not quite too hot) for beeswax to work. It will be marginal with its melting point. On the other hand, most other waxes seem to melt at a lower temperature. From the iron workers website, I'm wondering how a wax mix might work (or cook) on cast iron exhaust manifolds (after the original enamel has flaked off). A while ago we had a discussion of various treatments and potions, but I don't think this type was mentioned.

 

Misplaced. Peter was faster on the trigger.

 

Oh god it's in many products. We make Vaseline for Unilever at a number of our plants and even that uses filter pressed micro-fine wax blended with pharmaceutical white oil.

 

What works very well on cast iron exhaust manifolds is we make a product called Threadtex (I think the name has now been changed after merger) for the drilling industry to ease the release of pipe joints so they can undo the coupling and add another length of pipe when drilling. You could cook it up yourself. About 70% fine Zinc powder in oil with EP additives & other compounds. Paint it on to your exhaust manifolds and let the oil component burn off & you are left with beautiful Zinc coated cast iron manifolds. It has a life of about 5 years before another application is called for. I used to do it to all my Alfa exhaust manifolds & it looked great. You just paint it on with a brush.