heat shield color and finish queston

[roymil]

Hello,
I'll be installing my new exhaust soon and realized that not all of the heat shields I have now are original, so I would like to clean and correctly paint them before the new exhaust goes in. 

Can anyone describe the original factory finish on the exhaust heat shields?   

The middle and rear are newer for sure and the front one I think must be original and is very corroded.  Its hard to tell if it had primer or paint on it because the original horizon blue isnt that far off from primer color.  I dont know if the shields went in before or after factory paint?   I also dont know if anything was changed when the first exhaust was replaced back in the early 80's or when the car was repainted before that.

thanks much, Mark

[Leester]

Since no one has weighed in I'll give you the best info I have. I think mine are orginal but have no way of knowing for sure. My long center one is mill finished aluminum but was all scuffed up so I had it powder coated silver. With it all assembled and exhaust in place no one notices! I would guess that the original was the mill finish.

On the front one at the idler arm, I think it is steel. What its original finish was I don't know but I also had it powder coated silver. I had the little bracket cad plated along with a bunch of other parts, then painted clear coat over the cad.

I know this doesn't respond to your question as to what the original finish was but its the best I info I could track down.  Lee

[roymil]

Thank you!   Silver makes good sense for a heat shield so I am going to go ahead with that, using some VHT high temp paint.    Silver should reflect the largest IR spectrum.   I'm painting the new exhaust flat black since that will have the highest emissivity and is close to what came from the factory.

[zoegrlh]

Factory exhaust was more a gray/black

[wwheeler]

I ceramic coated my heat shields. The ceramic coating and has a much thinner and a nicer satin finish than does powder coating. Plus has a higher heat tolerance. They look brand new and will last forever.