Bell Housing

I purchased an aluminium bell housing to suit a Ford SMB 302 to Tremec TKO600 from Roadcraft last year. As soon as I got it I was really concerned with the surface finish of the casting. It looks like it is seriously cracked in many places. I had a good chat with Brian at Roadcraft (who has been absoultely brilliant I must add, can't speak more highly of him or Roadcraft as a supplier) who agreed to replace it with the best one could find from his next batch from Tremec. It was exactly the same as the one I had already received. It now looks like the die tooling for the casting has many surface cracks in it and these transfer onto the cast part which gives the 'appearance' of cracking.

Surface defects on the bell housing

Being a bit sad I did not want to leave my bell housing looking like this so I spend an evening smoothing out all the (or at least as many as I could get at!) imperfections which left a very much more ascetically pleasing apperance although it would not stay shiny for long if left uncoated. I decided to have it powder coated in red, RAL 3030 to be precise and I must say that it now looks really good. 

After coating. All smooth and shiney....

At a cost of only £40 I am well pleased. I took it to Rugby Power Coatings. After masking all the machined areas and plugging all the tapped holes they had it media blasted to provide a good key for the powder coat. They undercoated it first with a zinc rich primer as this can aid in creating a better bond but also creates a thicker smoother overal finish on the coated parts.