1977 302 PCM Engine

Depends on the year, I believe ‘77 would have been pretty dark blue with bright green manifolds. I want to say it’s darker than the off the shelf options (at least the ford colors). Did you run a wet compression test after running it dry?

TRBenj wrote: Depends on the year, I believe ‘77 would have been pretty dark blue with bright green manifolds. I want to say it’s darker than the off the shelf options (at least the ford colors). Did you run a wet compression test after running it dry?

Yes, ran it again with some oil added, still showed 0 psi.

Steve,
Here's the 302 Escort in my 77 Tique.

8122pbrainard wrote: The Escorts were made for a couple years. PCM bought them and for about another year continued making the engines under the "Escort" name. They are nothing more than a marinized Ford.

Why the powder coat? I feel a wet engine paint with a primer would hold up better.

8122pbrainard wrote: Steve, Here's the 302 Escort in my 77 Tique. [QUOTE=8122pbrainard] The Escorts were made for a couple years. PCM bought them and for about another year continued making the engines under the "Escort" name. They are nothing more than a marinized Ford Why the powder coat? I feel a wet engine paint with a primer would hold up better.

I am not opposed to wet paint and primer. I assumed powder would hold up better being baked on. If that’s not the case, wet paint would be fine.

TRBenj wrote: That would indicate a valvetrain issue, so that is good news. The Waukesha (and early PCM’s) used a darker blue than the ones shown in the thread that Pete linked. I think reid had some custom mixed for jmurphs promo. The 71 HM in that thread is ford blue (1601), and there are some pics of the Ford Dark blue in there also. Old ford blue is somewhere in between the 2 in darkness... that’s what Pete’s escort appears to be. Now there are some all blue (manifolds included) PCM’s (not including the rebranded escorts) that we’re made around ‘77 that could have been old ford blue... but I haven’t seen very many like that. They used something darker with the green manifolds that were more typical both before and after that point.

Here's a picture of what Tim is talking about, it's real genuine 42 year old 76 Pleasurecraft blue on a carburetor. The picture was taken with no flash in normal room light

It definitely darker than what Pete is trying to pass off as anything close

It was never glossy from day 1 . You'd probably have to custom mix some blue and black if you really want to have the same color.

I also took pictures of the 76 valve covers but the bright sun kinda affected the shots.

And....I still have the butt ugly green manifolds too if you want to try matching that color

Sure looks pretty close enough to this-

Here's a picture showing PCM blue compared to Dark Ford Blue fresh from the spray can

Even 42 years of aging won't make it the same

Well it's what mine was painted before I got it so I just copied it. Being a HM I now think it should have been the lighter shade but this has kinda grown on me. I used Bill Hirsch engine enamel, "Ford Blue '41-42 up to '48"     link

Why do I have this wild urge to go listen to some oldies like "Fly like an Eagle"   "Abracadabra" and   "Take the money and run" ?

[/QUOTE]

That is the color of mine, with some additional gunk on it.

Is your PCM intake manifold the same color? My intake is the lighter blue, my wife couldn’t remember if her father ever replaced it.

Duane in Indy wrote: 8122pbrainard wrote: Steve, I feel you have the wrong idea about powder coating. The "baking" is not to adhere the coating but to melt it. It's basically a plastic powder sprayed onto a warm surface and then when it goes back into the oven the powder melts together. Adhesion has been improved through the years but it's still not as good as wet paint where there's a chemical bonding. Have you ever had the plastic coating on plier handles slip off? I always use that as an analogy. All of the powder coating that I have had done had to be sand blasted first to give it a surface to bite onto. Questionable as to which method adheres the best when each is properly applied. Paint is probably easier to color match. All my tools had a "plastidip" applied to them and not a powder coating. Apparently yours are different.

I get what you are saying Pete, powder coat could create more of a shell than a chemical bond from primer and paint. Not a marine application but manufacturing axles we always acid wash then prime and paint. Seems to hold up to high heat and weather conditions. If I got the powder route I will definitely sand blast first.

8122pbrainard wrote: Mille1sj wrote: I am not opposed to wet paint and primer. I assumed powder would hold up better being baked on. If that’s not the case, wet paint would be fine. Steve, I feel you have the wrong idea about powder coating. The "baking" is not to adhere the coating but to melt it. It's basically a plastic powder sprayed onto a warm surface and then when it goes back into the oven the powder melts together. Adhesion has been improved through the years but it's still not as good as wet paint where there's a chemical bonding. Have you ever had the plastic coating on plier handles slip off? I always use that as an analogy.

Pete, with all due respect—powder coating is vastly superior to wet sprayed coatings and is the standard bearer for durability and chip resistance and especially corrosion performance. I’ve been in metal finishing 1/2 of my 35 working years and powder coating and e-coatings (electrophoretic) as well as autodeposited coatongs have surpassed wet coatings. I think you may be operating on old information. From my perspective, wet spray is the easiest and most affordable way to get this job done.

For what it's worth, I don't have any reason to believe my barn find 77 Tique with the PCM 302 not to be original and I found that the engine was 2 shades of ford blue with the green manifolds. For instance the block was Ford Blue while the oil pan was a rubberized old ford blue with white stamped lettering on the bottom. The carb linkage and starter solenoid plate were Ford Blue. My thoughts were when the engine was marinized some of those components were painted Old Ford Blue, at least on my engine.

When I rebuilt the engine I chose to paint the complete engine old ford blue (Dupli-Color DE1621). With the manifolds I originally went with Dupli-Color Grabber Green DE1641 but I found that Rust-Oleum Grabber Green to be more of a match to the original manifolds.

Faceplant wrote: Does anybody have a pic of the green manifolds ? Just curious .

If you were to check back later today, I bet you'll see some green manifolds

That is what my original manifolds looked like, with a few rusted holes and water leaking out of them.