bilge painting

[Neil Smith]

Hi all,

 

I am about to paint my engine hole under the cruiser deck, the sides, swim, bulkhead and stern I will spray grey but how do I paint the bilge under the engine as I can hardly get my hand under, it is in red oxide at the moment by builder.

 

Neil.

[Tony Brooks]

I would not bother. Unless you have a very exceptional engine and very careful engineers it will get covered in a film of spilt oil and fuel and over the years that will rust "proof" the steel.

 

All I would do is to slide one or two white (Oil only) absorbent pads under the engine leaving maybe 3 inches at back. Any small amount of water that gets into the drip tray will run to the back but without any significant amounts of oil in it. This allows you to sponge it out and squeeze it out along the hedge line. However for most of the year it should be all but dry.

 

My dip tray has been like that since 1991 and so far has minimal rusting.

 

The other way is to lift the engine out so you can clean and degrease it all properly before painting it.

 

Personally I would not spray because the spray mist gets everywhere. I use Hemple (other brands availability) bilge and locker paint applied with a long handled radiator brush and long handled 4" roller.

[Keeping Up]

I use a small paint roller with a long wire extension handle, sold in diy stores for painting the wall behind radiators. You can even bend the wire slightly if necessary. I don't use a paint tray or anything, just pour a bit of Danboline on the floor and then spread it using the roller.

[Scholar Gypsy]

I wasn't quite clear if you have a split bilge. If you do ...

 

The part of the bilges under the engine can be kept pretty dry, but as Tony says is well rust proofed by a mixture of oil and diesel (with a bit of water too, and the odd tumbler of orange squash in my case).

 

For the "wet" part of the bilge, under the stern tube, I basically applied rust proofing, and then poured the paint in, sloshed it around with a brush, and left it for a fortnight to dry. Photo here. You can see the rust treatment at the foot of the photo

 

[Neil Smith]

Ok I will use the sloshing method under the stern gland, I have just sprayed other areas after masking up most bits first, now under engine I will try the rad roller method where I can but as tony said it should not rust there, not after a few oil changes anyway.

 

Thanks for replies.

 

Neil