Sorry to all but another question....I degrease, scrubbed, sanded and took a wire wheel to my tranny and it still does not look like cast iron. Would you use a rust converter prior to paint or do I need to just quit asked and wire wheel some more?
The OP's photo looks EXACTLY like bare cast iron, rusty! Good quality paint,as was suggested will keep it and all other cast iron looking like freshly sandblasted cast iron you want. I use Eastwood's hi-temp manifold cast iron paint, but there's lots of stuff out there these days.