Any advice on painting an outboard motor would be appreciate

I have a '97 Mercury 25 HP outboard that the sun has taken a toll on. I'm not too worried about the shaft or foot...area below the cowl, but would appreciate any advice on the proper way to repaint (myself) the top cowling of the motor.

I found a replacement decal kit on Ebay of which I have purchased. What's the best way to remove the old, faded decals? After removal, does the cover need to be sanded? Can the cover just be degreased, washed real well and repainted? I see where Mercury sells an enamal spray paint in phantom black that I thought I might try. I also see where they sell a clear coat in a rattle can. It's not in extremely bad condition now, and I don't want to make it worse. Any tips? Pics are below. Thanks, Kevin.

I'm no painter but I did sleep in a Holliday Inn Express. :lol: Kidding aside, I've got several friends that do automotive painting and that's where I've picked up what little I know. To remove the old decals, I'd use a 3M Eraser wheel. Any place your paint is chipped will need to be sanded to feather the edges of the chips. The entire surface should be sanded enough to remove any oxidized paint and to rough up the surface to allow the new paint to stick. I would use a self etching primer anywhere that the fiberglass or metal is exposed.

Here's an old Merc I recently repainted although I didn't replace the decals on this one.

Even though it's black that motor looks real good, Mike!

Any idea why I can't see the picture of his motor? It's not in the reply, nor a link to click on. :shock:

PS - thanks for the advice

Thanks SDG. It looked better in person than it did in the pics when I took those. I guess I'm a better painter than I am a photographer. LoL As for the "black motor" it was part of the deal when I got the boat, but my last 4 motors have been merc's or mariners and I've had good luck with all of them. Parts seem to be a little easier to find for the johnnyrudes, but I suspect that's because there are more of them around.

[url=https://www.tinboats.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=332720#p332720 said:

USKEW » Today, 14:08[/url]"]Any idea why I can't see the picture of his motor? It's not in the reply, nor a link to click on. :shock:

Click to expand...

If you can't see any pics on the forum at all I'd say go to your User Control Panel > Board preferences > Display Options, and make sure you have it set to display pics. If it's only the pics that I posted that you can't see, I would suspect it to be your connection is lagging. I've had times where pics wouldn't show for me and it's always turned out to be my ISP lagging. Reloading the page or trying again later usually resolves that.

Don't know what the deal is. I checked the user settings and same is set to display pics in the messages. Internet connection is good. Oh well. Thanks for the advice. I'm new to the forum. I put another post out there about my upcoming boat project in general with no responses. CAN'T WAIT to get started on it...but deer season just started and it's my vehicle to get to the deer...so will have to wait till after the new year.

For whatever reason I can see the pics on the phone rather than the computer. That motor looks GREAT! Did you do that with spray paint from the can? Any tips on how to get that smooth even finish instead of looking like I spray painted it? Did you spray with clear coat after painting?

No, I didn't do that with spray cans, and no it doesn't have any clear coat on it. The reason it looks like it's got clear on it is because of the type paint I used. It's a paint that is used on aircraft and it has a natural shine to it. A friend of mine is a crop duster by trade and he gave me the paint. The finish depends a lot on your prep work to get the surface nice and smooth before you ever start to paint. The rest is more dependent on laying down a nice even wet coat of paint, without putting it on so heavy that you get runs in the paint.