Painting a radiator

So, my dad had a booboo in his car, while in a parkinglot he was looking in his rearview mirror as a hot chick, and a light pole came out of nowhere and crunch. New fender, new bonet, luckly his insurance will cover most of the bill without increaing his premiums (this time).

His car is a nice metalic blue, (see thumbnail), and I figured while he is getting his car painted, I could get my case painted too. Outside blue, chrome cardoor trim around the windows, and then I will paint the chassie silver, white lights, and just use water (or maybe blue) in the loop.



Anyways, long story short, will painting my rad decrease the heat disapation qualities?

yes it would, you can paint all of it but the fins though.

With cars you can get "metalic paint" wouldnt the metalic paint conduct heat?

anythings on a radiator interferes with removing heat from the radiator. This is why a coat of dusts destroys performance.

Yet every new radiator you buy comes painted. I imagine we are talking one digit percentages. Thats an amount that would matter quite a bit to some and less to others. I guess it depends on which group you are in.

There are paints that have metals put into them???

I have a paint at home that has metals put into them so after I paint the walls I can stick magnets and stuff to it. The paint is made by dulux its formulated for kids sticking stuff to walls but without usin pins etc.

metallic paints are still suspended in whatever it is that paint is made of. while it may help, if your worried about performance, I wouldnt.

though, your not likely painting the fins. the edges get painted, and maybe some overspray down into the fins is inevitable, to that regaurd, I wouldnt worry. if you actaully managed to paint between the fins, I think youd see serious damage to performance.