We see way too many cars that look really trick on the outside and have a nice interior, but lift the hood and moths, spiders and small animals scurry out in every direction. In fact, nearly every one of us on staff owns more than one car that fits this description. And considering what we typically have inside the engine, there is no reason the outside and the engine’s surroundings should be disgraceful.
Of course, there are some questions to be answered before breaking out the spray paint, such as what color to paint things. Fresh coats of the original colors are always a safe bet, but drowning an older General Motors engine bay in the same color that the body is painted can really look good. Or perhaps paint the engine bay and chassis semigloss black, and paint the engine body color. The choices are yours to make, but remember that subtle and simple are in for the ’90s. Also, if the firewall and inner fenderwells were originally painted body color, most will consider it butch to paint them any other color.
Besides cleaning and painting everything, you can also tune up the underhood appearance by routing wiring and hoses as inconspicuously as possible and replacing any visible parts that are worn. We decided to leave the engine in the car and the front clip (fenders, radiator support and inner fenderwells) bolted on. In hindsight, however, removing the engine would have actually made the job easier. Removing the engine and front clip would definitely enhance the detail job.
The underhood detailing idea sounded easy enough, so we rolled a ’68 Nova out of the garage and embarked on our weekend detail job that actually took two weekends. But the results were better than expected, and we are proud to leave the hood open at cruises. Now, if we could just do something about that dent in the passenger’s door….
