Painted gearbox - yay or nay?

[Dom Mk3]

Seeing as I've got a gearbox lying around in the garage waiting to be fitted... I had the idea of cleaning it up and painting it.

This is the engine bay as it stands if it helps:



Has anyone done/seen this before??

I'm in two minds, and is a bit difficult to go back once it's done!

[Bazzer]

nope. 

[Mk1Mad J - 16v]

I had my box rebuilt and noticed after that they'd sprayed it - i looked good for about a week, then it got dirty, the paint was cracked and flaking within 2 months and it looked worse than before it was painted dunno what paint they used but there was loads of wheel spray about the place and they only do gearboxes?

i suppose it might be worth cleaning if its gonna be a show car - if its a "proper" car i wouldn't bother, it'll only get covered in sh!te again 

[Judderi]

I gave up keeping my engine bay clean. With a daily driver it just gets filthy again when it rains. But i must say yours is very clean, the only thing that lets it down is your brown header tank. Time for a nice new white one. There only cheap.

[Mk1Mad J - 16v]

I gave up keeping my engine bay clean. With a daily driver it just gets filthy again when it rains. But i must say yours is very clean, the only thing that lets it down is your brown header tank. Time for a nice new white one. There only cheap.

one of these would be nice 

http://www.motechdirect.co.uk/motechdirect/content.asp?cat=1110&catalog=111001&inc=bailey

Some top-mount caps & a battery cover and you could eat your dinner off it 

[Dom Mk3]

easiest way to solve this - take a look under the bonnet. Seeing as it's covered in cables and bolt on bits, there's not a shockingly large amount of point in painting it. May as well just give it a good clean!!

And I'm not going to eat my dinner in that engine bay, it'll get dirty

[...joe]

paint the fecker!!!

the one above is mine. my theory is if you take something off, clean it, paint it etc before it goes back on. for the amount of effort it takes you might as well, it'll look nicer for all you can see of it!

[Dom Mk3]

there we go, silver it is!