Lotus Seven Engine Color

[TEM]

After removing the engine from the car, I can see a fair amount of rust forming on the engine block.  Much of the "original" paint is missing from both the Engine and transmission. With the engine and trans out, I thought it would be a good time to refresh the paint on both.  Both are painted the same light blue color.  I purchased a can of Rustoleum Engine Enamel paint in light blue (old Ford Blue) and shot paint on a test area of the transmission.  This paint is far brighter than the color that's on there.  So I did a little digging and found Ford painted all of their engines black prior to 1966.  Did Lotus paint the engines and transmissions or did a previous owner add the blue?  The poor paint job leads me to the latter.  Is there a right color for these engines or a just-do-whatever-you-want kind of thing?

 

[Dave W]

Per Chris Rees Magnificent 7, the super 7 1500, had a bell housing that was black and the engine was maroon.

[slowdude]

Cortina GT blocks are a blue very similar to that.

[SENC]

Lotus did paint engines - a number of different colors!  Check out John Donohoe's simplesevens website and you can find pictures of lots of cars and engines with different paint jobs.  Ford gearboxes appear to have been all black, all green, or green with a black bellhousing.

 

I think blue or blue gray were used on a number of engines/vehicles.  The S2 Cosworth 1500 seemed to have been painted wine red - and it's gearbox dark green.  I can't remember where I read/found that initially, but I did find this download of a thread on paint colors from the old se7ens mailserve.  Even here some disagreement - yet another indicator Lotus was never as consistent as we sometimes wish they'd been - John Watson's opinion is last in the list for each part.  His matches best with what I've seen/read elsewhere.

 

I don't recall reading whether earlier Cosworth engines like yours were similarly or differently painted. 

 

I chose the red/green scheme - because of what I'd read and because I found traces if both whe  cleaning my engine and gb.  But I did not take the time to try to specifically color match, finding POR-15's MG Maroon and Ford Green approximated well enough (for me) pictures I'd seen.

 

S2 Paint Colors.pdf

[TEM]

Thanks SENC, great color reference.  Now I have to decide if I should go with a color combination from the factory or keep it period correct to its early racing days.  I'm thinking the latter as the former would require a lot of other changes.  Although, I do like your Burgundy and green combination.

 

Thanks Slowdude, I'll look for some pictures of the Cortina engines.

[IamScotticus]

Torch over the painting surfaces to burn off any oily residues before paint.

Things are only original once.

Paint what you like.  I'm partial to a fire engine red..transmission, nobody will see it.  A light grey to see leaks easily is practical. 

I've been considering painting my lump a Lycoming grey.

No tractor colors please.

[toldfield]

We had paint left over from a Continental engine rebuild...

 

[SENC]

Here is a link to Joe's old Seven on simplesevens.net - you'll find pictures of his blue engine, which looks a lot like the sprayed blue you tried.  Looks nice to me.

 

https://www.simplesevens.org/1736/1736.htm

[TEM]

Yup, that looks like the same engine color.  But my engine bay will never look that nice.

I also tried the Duplicolor 1601.  The color was nearly identical to the Rustoleum Old Ford Blue but a little more glossy.  So, I went with the Rustoleum.

 

When removing the headers, I found a large crack in one set of pipes.  Had to strip back the paint to weld the crack.  So I decided to remove all of the white from the exhaust and paint it with high temp black (because that's what I had on hand).  Of course shipwright disease took over and I had to paint the alternator bracket, speedo bracket, water pump pulley, and crank pulley the same black.  Mostly because they were also rusting but also because the new engine paint made them look really ugly.  The cam cover will look a little worse but it's not rusting so I will leave it alone (for now).

 

The outside of the muffler was in surprisingly good shape once stripped.  That white paint/coating did a great job protecting the bare metal underneath.  However, the inside is rusting badly.  That will be the next big item to replace.  I like the one Joe put on his so will need to find out what muffler that is and how loud.

 

[EdWills]

Hi Tem.

On my Lotus factory built 1969 Lotus Seven Series 3 (originally painted in the really great looking metallic blue as on your car), the 2737E pre-uprated head, block, bell-housing and rear axle were all semi gloss or flat black.  The 116E gearbox case and tail shaft were what may be described as 'Brunswick Green'.  In a Lotus Seven Portfolio booklet that I have, a gent in the U.K. rebuilt a 1965 Series 2 Seven, and in his research he found that the engine block and head were originally 'Lotus Grey', the bell-housing was black, and the gearbox and tail shaft were Brunswick Green.   Cheers, W.