paint for hoppers

can anyone recommend a paint for using inside hopper tanks, no colour prefrence as to colours

Floor paint is good and stands up to the heat
Chris

do you mean like garage floor paint,

Yes thats the stuff, if you have a kwik fit near you go and ask one of the lads in there they have gallons off the stuff. Grey and Red
Chris

i'd personally be weary of painting the inside of the hopper, as it encourages rust, and prevents the heat exchanging efficeiently in the engine, aside from that, when the rust blebs through, it looks ghastly

Paul one cool dude

Thats why you use a decent paint to stop it looking like that, heat dosnot come into it, Radiators are painted
Chris

No need for paint inside a hopper

Just put a few tea bags in every time you run it and the tannic acid in the tea will help to stop corosion


Steve

ill defo give that a go, but the wolseley hopper is huge and at the minute looks rubbish inside, as its steel aswell i did want to give it some kind of treatment so think i will try floor paint followed by a tea bag lol

The inside of the hopper on my Lister G has been painted with silver paint and it's all cracking and showing the rust, don't look to good. That hopper's to bloody heavy to lift off so it will have to stay like that for now

Stu.

JONESEY wrote:Thats why you use a decent paint to stop it looking like that, heat dosnot come into it, Radiators are painted
Chris

i only mentioned heat because theres a small theoretical risk involved. see radiators are low temperature, and have smooth surfaces, therefore its quite easy to apply the paint flat and without air pockets, and aside from that, a radiator uses the radiation to transfer heat, not convection like our engines.

with a hopper it is almost impossible (unless its brand new, even then its difficult) to get the surfaces perfectly flat, lumps and bumps are still existant on the surfaces, where these are, its dead easy to get air pockets it the paint surface, this can cause a variety of problems, 1, air is an insulator not a conductor of heat, and will prevent the heat of the engine dispersing efficiently, 2, air in the presence of damp metal breeds rust and will not be noticeable until the paint is gone and the damage is done, 3, if theres enough air pockets, the heating in these areas could theoretically cause local overheating relative to the other areas of the engine which are effectively cooled, the latter statement however, is just theoretical, and hasnt been proven in practice.

Paul

I'm confused, I thought we were talking about car/truck radiators cause they were always painted black, Well until they started making them out of black plastic!

Stu.

This is a forum so we can all have a say this is getting to technical for me sorry I wish I hadent f*****g said anything
Chris

JONESEY wrote:This is a forum so we can all have a say this is getting to technical for me sorry I wish I hadent f*****g said anything
Chris

you've nothing to be sorry for Chris, you are entitled to you opinion as much as i am, i've merely provided a logical, technical case for my argument that hoppers should not be painted. we wouldnt gain anything by arguing with no facts or basis being involved on either part, we'd just be arguing, achieving nothing.

Paul

I have not bothered to paint the inside of any of my hopper cooled engines. I do not have the time or patience to get a good enough surface to take a proper coat of paint. The environment of cold water, then hot/boiling water and then dry for months at a time means there is little chance of long term paint survival. I have seen all sorts of different approaches to coating the inside of the hopper but I just make sure that it is pretty dry when the engines go into storage. I sometimes spray a some WD40 around just for the look of it.
Radiators are painted, but are they painted on the inside where the water is?