Trying to clean up the engine compartment on my 1973 GMC26. Bought some of Eastwood's excellent ceramic engine paint (Olds Blue) for $40 delivered only to find it is not the right blue. It is a bright metallic blue. Now I need to find out which is the right color. A duplic-Color ceramic engine paint reference would be my preference. Is the "GM Corporate Blue" the right color? My engine looks more like a teal color, but it is 45 year old paint. Any help?

My first father in law and I had an arrangement in which I did the
mechanical restoration and he did the cosmetic part of old automobiles. He
had 2 favorite paint colors for engines. Battleship gray, and Catterpillar
Yellow. Didn't matter if the engine went into a 49 Cadillac Sedanette, a
Willys Jeepster, A Studebaker Transtar pickup, or anything else. He said
colors didn't matter. Engines didn't know the difference. Coropate blue was
used by several divisions of GM. Kinda like putting 350 Chevrolet engines
in Pontiacs. Customers never recovered from bean counter decisions like
that. Killed Olds, Pontiac, Saturn too.
Now an Impala looks like a Camry, or an Accord, or Hyndai or for that
matter, a refrigerator or a toaster. More like appliances than cars.
The tri-fives are long gon.
Jim Hupy
Salem, Or
78 GMC ROYALE 403

On Jul 21, 2017 10:35 AM, "Terry" wrote:

> "Early engines were gold."
>
> IIRC, the original engine block in my Dad's '67 Ninety-eight was gold with
> red valve covers and a red air cleaner housing. The rest of the compartment
> is black, not the body color. When the oil pump gave up and the engine was
> replaced, the color was changed to blue by the rebuilder...did not like
> that, but also did not like that he declared the original 425 beyond
> repair and substituted a 455 which has never run right and now has a burned
> exhaust valve. That original engine went a quarter of a million miles and
> was still running smooth as silk with no exhaust smoke from oil until the
> oil pump went in the middle of a 5 mile long bridge, and it kept going
> after that to get him off the bridge, but I guess that was what did in the
> cylinder walls. Heck, the factory water pump lasted 222,000 miles until
> one night somewhere in Alabama, where Dad and I replaced it at a self-serve
> gas station in the middle of the night.
> --
> Terry Kelpien
>
> ASE Master Technician
>
> 73 Glacier 260
>
> Smithfield, Va.
>
>
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Hopefully the link below will show the intake with the new Eastwood "Olds Blue" ceramic engine painted listed for the 1973 Olds 455 block. I've never included a link to a photo before so it may take a while to get it to display correctly.

http://www.gmcmhphotos.com/photos/gmc26/p63474-oldsbluemetallic.html

This photo from the files is more like what my engine color looks like.
http://www.gmcmhphotos.com/photos/mechanical/p58026-exhaust-gasket-leak.html
is this just an old and faded version of my new paint link above?

What year do you have? That makes a difference. I think 73-76 were a metallic blue. 77-78 were corporate blue. You may have to go to an Olds vender for the early engine color. Bob Dunahugh