Painting an assembled engine.

[SteveW]

Got my engine cleaned and ready to paint. Just one question, do you paint the bolt heads or mask them up?

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

I painted mine before assembly - I suspect the manufacturers did not paint them as an assembled unit.

Personally I would not bother about masking up bolts you can't see so that means fewer bolts to mask if you choose that route.
I suspect if you paint the visible ones the paint will start to crack at the bolt heads, if you mask up there will still be a line so the outcome will probably end up the same.

Quicker & easier to just paint as a complete unit.

[Mike_Berkshire]

I remember Martin6 posted about masking the bolt heads on the forum several months ago when he painted his engine.

[SteveW]

I had a moment of inspiration and ordered a pack of different size plastic bolt caps from Amazon, save me masking up the heads.

[neat street]

i use blue tac to cover the bolt heads ect, much easier and works, just pick out with a tooth pic after.

[Mike_Berkshire]

Im going to go for the Blutack approach; thanks for the suggestion!