Stock Intercooler, Cleaning and painting Question

[millerbruce]

I pulled my Stock intercooler off to give it a good cleaning. I then realized it could use a fresh coat of paint. I was wondering what chemicals to use to strip off the old paint, and if it would more benifile to re-paint the coils or just leave them bare metal without any paint. Meaning paint the housing, but not the screen. Is this going to harm the intercooler. Or is this just a stupid idea all togther? Would buy an all new intercooler, but still undecided. So sticking with the stock for now. Thanks for your intererest.

 

[HyperV6]

Don't take it to a radiator shop. The epoxy that attaches the core to the end tanks will be eaten / dissolved. I used regular paint stripper only on my end tanks and keeping it clear of the area where the core attaches to the tanks. I then cleaned the stripped area with acetone. I painted it with Eastwood satin radiator paint (see Eastwood restorations products on the web). I guess if you were careful you could strip the paint off the core. It would be a time consuming job to clean all the paint out of the core and not have it all trapped and block air flow threw it.

Craig

 

[NVRL8]

I used the Eastwood satin radiator paint on mine also. Finish came out very nice. I left the fins alone (can't really see them when the intercooler is on the car anyway). I used a media blaster to strip the paint.