Alum Engine Parts and Corrosion
 

I got to thinking that the way aluminum parts tend to corrode because of electrolosis and other effects from chemicals, is there anything special I should do to protect them from deterioration. I have seen a radiator cap that had some sort of anode that hung in the coolant that was supposed to draw the electrolosis. And I was thinking about the new red coolant that GM uses these days in all their motors. I was thinking maybe it was specially formulated for LS motors?
Do you guys do anything special to protect expensive aluminum heads and such?

Zinc is a common metal used for that purpose - and no I do not used anything special in/on my cars.

Anode rod .

A couple of suggestions...
 

Flex-A-Lite makes a sacrificial anode that replaces the radiator petcock. Fabricate a ground wire directly attached to your radiator. Radiators are usually rubber mounted and the coolant can generate low voltage and cause corrosion.

There is some good info here: http://www.no-rosion.com/technical.htm

as for protecting external aluminum parts... i use & have had great success with spray can clear engine enamels. done intakes, valve covers & most recently the aluminum radiator & my e-heads on a 468 i just finished. the valve covers on my 78 400 are the gm performance "pontiac" covers & they look like the day i did them 5 years ago & well over 5000+ miles, no signs of peeling or breaking down & not a hint of corrosion like i see on some others that are only a year old or less. aside from a little dust, dirt & oil residue normal for anything in the engine compartment, it wipes right off. key is to be perfectly clean & use a very light coat, too think & it could peel or affect the cooling of the radiator.

on the e-heads there is no sign of yellowing near the exhaust ports or any peeling or flaking. this is after about 600 break in miles & even a dyno session that faded the ceramic coat on the headers a little. & even if they do start to yellow a little bit on the ex ports, the rest of the head should stay just as nice as the valve covers after many years & thousands of miles. look at any aluminum heads or other parts after just a year or so, we all know how corroded & ugly they can get. heck the e-heads started to corrode & get that white powdery substance after only a couple months sitting inside my house! clean em up, wire brush as best you can & wipe clean with brake cleaner or laquer thinner, then spray with a light coat of the engine clear. you will be amazed at how well it works.

Ground the head to the block, don't count on head bolts, ground the block, ground the heads, ground the heads to the block, ditto with the distributor and intake

make sure your charging system is up to par

I cannot see any reason you would need a separate ground from the heads to the block.

In addition to the head bolts, you also have the metal portion of the head gaskets making a ground connection.

i think he is saying is to ground the heads to the block 3 times

Count them...

Ground the head to the frame.....

Ground the head to the block.......

ground the block to the frame....

ground the distributor to the intake....

ground the intake.....

most of its already done from the factory but with electronic upgrades the other grounds are nessessarry

I just don't get this mentality, makes no sense to me. Intake grounds to the heads by bolts, at least, heads ground to the block by the compression ring (at least), distributor to the block by the collar, and just need to make sure you have a proper ground from the block or heads to the chassis. I've never done more than that and never had any issues.

I paint all my aluminum engine parts with engine paint, I use the natural aluminum color, lasts forever, and easily touched up. I etch the parts though, when I can, initially.

I went back and forth on my e-heads, and chose to paint them engine color. Chioce is yours.

Bare aluminum exposed to the elements will corrode/discolor, kind of a no-brainer.

There are special coatings available, can call places like Jet Hot and others, ask about them. Heads are tough since you usually need to do it before assembly. If you do them before machine work it's obviously worthless. I think due to costs, etc, it's easier to just paint them with engine paint.

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i did count them... the post says to ground the head to the block 3 times, or at least says ground the heads 3 times, 2 of them to the block.... with 10 head bolts per side there is no reason whatsoever to ground the heads to the block, the bolts make a direct metal to metal contact 20 times, adding a wire wont benefit anything. same with the intake. & the charging system being up to par has no affect on aluminum parts corroding, neither does multiple grounds. thats what the question was about. no offense, just replying to the post.

i agree, paint them with engine paint... but use the clear engine paint unless you want them engine color (blue). that way they still look natural aluminum, all the aluminum paint colors dont quite look "natural" IMO. you cant match real aluminum, paint doesnt have the same luster & sheen as real aluminum. the clear engine enamels are every bit as good as the colors.

I presumed the corrosion was an internal issue, painting them obviously solves external corrosion problems. I got that.

if you are counting on the rings to provide grounding you got pretty big problems and soon will have more.

and reading disorder too perhaps

You cant possibly be sure on every occasion that everybodys heads are properly grounded, so why not allow people do properly ground their engine if it works and solves their problem.:(

and obviously you have nor read the article in HP Pontiac magazine a few years back about electrical problems contributing to internal engine corrosion.... especially with aluminum. engine parts..... I could be wrong there too but that's what the article said. maybe they're wrong and many others who have solved the problems by fixing that are wrong too

adding a wire or two or three certainly benefits anything other wise why would the company do it? adding another to the distributor so the ground does not go through the distributor gears and the arcing causing damage to them. and when Pontiac had a similar problem with their tranny' grounding through the drive shaft and the arcing causing similar problems... guesse what they did? they added additional ground straps too Oh and so did Chrysler.

so ok you don't want to ground your engine and you don't agree with me or the engineers, but what if it does work for others and solves a lot of their problems. and if head bolts do such a good job of grounding the block why do Pontiac and others add at least two other grounds to the heads? just asking?

it seems that with increase electrical loads and more electronic gear more and better grounds make sense. maybe it will reduce or eliminate corrosion within the engine.

reading disorder? ok... re-read your post, it says to ground the heads to the block 2 times & the 3rd time doesn't say anything about grounding to the frame. it just says to the ground the heads again... 3 times....

& i am not the one that mentioned the gasket rings. so the reading disorder as well as a typing disorder based on your reply, is all you.

i also never said not to ground the engine as the factory suggests, i even stated what the factory does on most cars. but to ground a head when it has 10 huge bolts threaded directly into the block makes no sense at all & it doesnt look like i'm the only one that agrees with that... just sayin.

so before you make this any more personal & offensive than you have, i will take the high road & leave it alone. feel free to redundantly ground your heads if you think there is a problem with 10 bolts doing it.

What problem are we solving here?

Coolant provides very good protection against corrosion for both iron and aluminum. That's what it's designed to do, besides keep the water from freezing or boiling where it normally would. The water passages in the heads, block, etc. should not have any issues with corrosion if you have an adequate amount of fresh coolant in your engine. Change it out once a year.

78w72 has the right of it. 10 big bolts hold the head to the block. How does adding a wire between head and block do anything those bolts aren't doing? It's possible the outer bolts along the exhaust side may not be of much benefit if there's paint under them, but the five under the valve covers should still be more than sufficient, and yeah, the steel sealing ring in the headgasket also contributes. Before I'll believe there's any benefit to adding a wire I want to see all of the evidence and understand every variable involved in whatever situation that seemed to work for, otherwise it's all just hearsay.

A ground wire from distributor to block *or* head is a good idea as there might be paint or a gasket interfering with the path between distributor body and block or clamp.

What you need is a ground path from the engine and the body/frame to the battery so that you have a good low-resistance circuit. A good ground strap from the engine to the frame and from the frame to the body will be just fine. Make sure there's no paint or corrosion under your strap mounting points (a wire wheel and some deox will take care of this). Who are all these people that are having (what) problems that are being solved with a bunch of redundant ground wires? Never met one of them...?

I have KRE aluminum heads on a 455. I have four copper grounding straps running from the heads and block to the firewall and chassis. Only run distilled water and Water Wetter as the drag strips don't like coolant. I still get some corrosion in the motor.
So I'm taking Les' {Wheelspin} suggestion of using a sacrificial anode.

Jim

might get away with straight water in FL, but thats not going to work for anyone where the weather gets anywhere near freezing. & just to keep this all on topic, the OP's main question is about protecting external engine parts from corroding. i'm not sure how or why the grounding issue came up. you could have 100 seperate grounds from any part of the engine you wanted.... but external unprotected aluminum parts will still corrode from the atmosphere, unless you seal them off with something. grounds are irrelevant to this.

add an anode rod or whatever for internal corrosion & electrolasis etc, but to protect external parts, use a clear paint or some have suggested wiping them with wd-40 or some other chemical, but that is temporary at best & will attract dust & dirt. :focus:

Alodine will protect exterior aluminum parts from corrosion.

what ever dude. thanks for your contribution not going to get into a verbal shell game with you on what you say I said. And frankly if your offended by my suggestions go get some big boy pants on.

nobody said anything about a gasket ring accept you, HWYSTR455 mentioned grounding through the compression ring and I did say to ground to the frame too,

I stand by my statement and don't have any grounding problems nor any corrosion problems. dare I say that grounding the radiator is a good idea too?

have a nice day:argue:

ok "dude" from the very start you accused me of haveing a reading disorder... i'm not offended, i said that your comments were becoming offensive, like you're getting all mad or something... its pretty clear that no one agrees with grounding the heads multiple times, or the intake or anything else that is grounded by numerous bolts. the dist i agree with, if needed, but again..... this topic is about protecting aluminum parts from corroding. thats all. & sorry but grounding doesn't stop corrosion of aluminum parts, is your engine inside a vacuum or somthing that you have no corrosion on exposed aluminum??

& please, re-read the posts before you make anymore comments that support the "reading disorder" thing. HWYSTAR's referance to "compression ring" is the metal ring in the head gasket... did you think he meant the piston rings??? & here is the 2nd person to mention the head gasket "rings" :oogle: