Continental Colors

[tomreneau]

Trying to find the original and modern codes colors for the c90 from around 1949. Overhaul manual refers to the parts manual which only lists two different gold colors. Not seeing anything else anywhere. Any ideas?

[6183]

Tom,
C-90-14F engine case and the oil tank installed on my 1949 C-140A are painted gray as indicated below. Intake pipes, valve covers, and the carburetor are gloss black. Last owner before me replaced the Continental Cylinders with new Superior units which are aluminum color (not painted); therefore, I don't know if those older cylinders were painted black, but I would assume yes. Former Association member Jack Sheehan who restored the airplane in the late 1980's, and won Reserve Grand Champion at Oshkosh with it in the early 1990's, painted the engine in those colors during the restoration process. Jack did extensive research with Cessna Aircraft on the airplane in order to configure it to its original condition as it left the factory.

With a little help from the folks over at the Short Wing Piper Club -

This old data is very hard to find these days.

The answer is deceptively easy: Randolph Aircraft Products sells Continental Gray paint, and the black is simply Gloss Black. http://www.randolphaircraft.com/ In reality, the shades of paint have varied through the years, and the exact match may be lost to time. However, Randolph provided paint to Continental for 60 years, and my vote is that their version of Continental Gray is more right than wrong. I have used Plastikote Universal Gray and Gloss Black engine paint, and the colors are near identical to the Randolph tint. Plastikote can be bought at any auto parts store, although is not FAA approved. It sounds crazy, but there are some guys who get really hung up on that detail. The Randolph paint meets some sort of Mil Spec, though. I paint most of my engines with the Plastikote paint as it is easy to use and really adheres well to aluminum. A nice little trick is to "seal" the engine with an overall clear coat after the engine is assembled. This literally encases all of the gasket surfaces and the engines stay remarkably free of most oil leakage. Thanks to my friends at Mattituck for that little trick-

The paint scheme has varied a bit through the years, also. The most common scheme is to paint the engine crankcase and oil sump Continental Gray. The cylinders, rocker box covers, carburetor, and intake pipes are Gloss Black. There was a period of time when the engines were painted all black, although I don't have an exact time frame. Somebody on the production floor probably wanted to save some time and effort by using one color.