In my early morning grumpiness moving my bikes for an exterior stucco job on the house, I noticed my '97 FLSTC has spots on the engine where the "black coating" [what material is it?] on the cooling fins is chipped off in little areas and shows the aluminum. Not really first time I noticed but does anyone know of an inexpensive product [that works better than a black Sharpy pen] to cover this up with motor in frame or is this one of those "suck it up until the rebuild moments"? 87K on the beeotch and still going strong with 100% compression and 0% leakdown so it may be a while for that, knock on wood!

 

I suggest masking the areas that you do not want black, mask the base of your engine and all chrome within the immediate, then hit the the spot that needs repair with a very high temp engine spray. Auto shops carry it, I purchased my paint at Home Depot.

The higher degree of tolerence the better. I'm sure that will last longer than a marker, just a thought. I used high temp paint on the curve of a Bassani Header Pipe (three to four coats a few hours apart), and ran the bike. The paint remained in tacked and that was on top of chrome too. Try it you might like it. Oh, they have both flat and glossy high temperature paint, so you can choose what color closly matched your engine.

Good Luck!

 

Ouch, I think it would be easier taking the heads off! Be a lot of masking on my bike! Maybe a little hi-temp paint with a Q-tip will do this time [if I ever get to that job!]. I wonder if anyone got good results with the touch up bottles with the little brushes?

 

Other than what has been already mentioned, that is about it.
Many folks have their engine professionally powder coated while doing a build here.
Check out www.sumax.com.
Their blue, blown bagger in on the July, Easyrider cover.
Scott