Refinishing the Engine Compartment Overhead & Walls

The best illustration I could find of the existing paint in the engine compartment is a dated image (old drain manifold, hole from original engine raw water intake on port, refrigeration lines feed into ice box, and no bulkhead separating the engine compartment from the cockpit locker).

Old image of Pilgrim's engine compartment that illustrates the need for repainting the area.

The image does do a good job of illustrating the dingy, tired paint on the walls; a lack of paint overhead, and the poor quality oil based paint applied to only a portion of the hull. 

We decided to take a top down approach to painting the engine compartment.  We began with the overhead and vertical side walls.  Most of the surfaces required only minor prep work… TSP wash down followed by two rinses with fresh water.  The overhead was previously lined with decaying soundproofing material.  The sound proofing was easily removed. The steel sound proofing mounting tabs were epoxied to the overhead.  The epoxied tabs quickly succumb to a hammer and old chisel.   The forward, interior of the cockpit foot well (see brown area in image below) was also covered with sound proofing material.  Unlike the overhead this section of sound proofing was glued to the boat.  The heavy application of contact cement proved very stubborn.

State of Pilgrim's engine compartment prior painting.

Rather than engaging in a prolonged battle to excise the old glue, we fabricated a plywood panel for the area.  Once again we reused sections of the original salon aluminum angle for mounting the plywood panel.  The plywood has the added benefit of allowing us to easily mount wiring, electrical components, hoses, etc.

Overhead and side walls of engine compartment painted.

We plan to install new sound proofing material on the two port access panels, the starboard access panel, the forward access panel, and the overhead.  The sound proofing will be added once all the other dust producing projects are completed.

See our Repowering Photo Album for images and notes current progress.