What paint would a person use on the aluminum thermostat housing?

 

Watercolor? :-)

 

I was planning to use Rustoleum engine paint.

 

I'd assume any engine paint with a high enough heat rating... I guess I'm asking if anyone has used one and had feedback after it's been installed for some time.

 

The thermostat housing doesn't require any special temperature paint. Note that the engine is neither gloss nor flat and select a semi-gloss from your helpful hardware man.

 

Finished metal thermostat tower change out, including while I was at it new thermostat, bypass hose, crossover pipe, water pump and serpentine belt, and needed new reservoir pipe because the plastic tube broke when taking it off. Didn't need to touch intake manifold.
So, coolant leak fixed successfully.

I discovered the following along the way:
- Although it might seem - even though you've loosened it - a rear bolt still won't come out because it just won't clear the intake manifold, it will come out - but only once the other three corners are free.
- K Westra's method of using hammer and chisel to break off the rear corners of the old plastic housing is the best IMHO if one or both of the rear bolts won't loosen. Easy and very quick and least (pretty much zero) chance of getting broken plastic pieces into the engine.
- I used an 8mm allen key (5/16 may work, too) along with my bent 8mm combination wrench (see picture below). This extended the wrench and allowed use of a socket and ratchet.
When tightening the rear bolts for the new housing this allowed me to torque the rear bolts fairly accurately, I believe, because the allen key can be adjusted such that the socket is directly (or near enough anyway) above the bolt head.