A couple of questions on this New Year's Eve digest.
Though often argued about, we've never found any reason to believe that
factory six-cylinder Healey engines were ever painted any color other than what
we
call "Healey Engine Green" which is the light metallic silver-gray green.
(Clausager says it was called "Steel dust grey" for you triviots). The only
documented exception were a few of the first 100-Sixes assembled at Abingdon
during
the transition from Longbridge to Abingdon), which were painted the darker
Morris green.
The Hirsch engine green is actually one of their aviation paints, and is
supposed to stay on at high heat; the Moss rattle-can version won't take as
much
heat. Nevertheless, the best bet for the manifolds is to paint them with a
manifold paint (and silver or light gray is a good choice) that will bake on,
and
then overpaint them with the Healey engine green (Hirsch paint works very well
for this application because it's thick, and goes on easily with a brush
without showing brush strokes.
Over time, my manifolds have gradually burned in and are now an interesting
gold-green color.
Happy New Year
gary
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