undercarriage paint??

[LSTCUP]

it's getting close to start making those hard decisions on the Fastback, it's a GT 390 car, not interested in having it judged at shows but will have a show car quality laquer paint job.
the decision I'm facing now is painting the undercarriage, basically I can go with the from the factory look red primer w/overspray (metuchen) or paint it body color, I've seen some really nice paint jobs on this site and was wondering which way you went with the undercarriage, any pic's? what paint did you use to keep stone chips at a minimum? I was thinking Imron I hear its pretty tough.

 

[sigtauenus]

I went with the red oxide look. Epoxy primer and Eastwood red something or other, don't recall the name. It has the reputation as being tough as nails, and from end users, not just Eastwood propaganda.

I prefered clean lines with no overspray, and put a masked line between the red and black along the seam at the bottom of the firewall.

 

[LSTCUP]

Here's a detailed post from Jeff Speegle, great information to have for anyone going the concourse route, this is for a 68 San Jose, pretty sure it was the same for 67 Metuchen

68 San Jose normal preparation

1- Unibody Assembled with doors, trunk lid, rear valance and rear end caps attached. Valance attached with two screws - normally second one in from each end. (Valances may have been added after the body primer coat but were in place at time of exterior color application - the important thing

Rear end caps were attached loosely or spaced rearward so the paint would lay correctly and wrap around them. They were later removed, gaskets added (trim if so equipped) and fulling attached at that point

Seam sealer done on areas such as cowl, roof line, trunk and door seams. Valance was primered prior to attachement

Body attached to a dolly by four four points and sits on an additional four points which will later produce "dolly marks" - round circles void of paint or sealers

2- Seam Sealer 1st Application - Applied to the rear wheel wells between the inner and outer, trunk seams, rear wheel well at the lip cowl and engine compartment to firewall seams from the wheel side. Some of this seam sealer was applied with brush while other was shot directly from a spray gun and not smoothed as it was in some earlier years

3- Sound Deadener 1st Application - Applied to the rear wheel wells, inside trunk and the forward surface of firewall to front wheelwell. On the rear wheel well application guarantied that some sound deadener was applied normally to the frame rail in the same area as well as slightly behind.

4- Primer Sealer - Applied to top and bottom of the car. And exterior top side, main body often received some light grey primer (not likely a sealer) as a surfacer. Under the car for this year and plant we find strong red oxide slightly shinny to a pasty dusty red oxide

5- Seam Seamer Black flexible sealer is then applied on the rocker panel to floor panel seam, at the bottom edge of the quarter panels behind the drain and around (well they tried) seat belt mounts with a 1-1 1/2" brush. Never seen red oxide over these ,.... on this year.

6- Interior color is next applied to the doors, a pillar and dash. Black out is applied to the dash speaker and defroster area. On fastbacks to the rear defroster mount area

7-Exterior Paint Interior painted areas are masked then the exterior color is applied allowing for overspray (while they attempted to get a good coat on the rockers, wheel wells and rear fender lips) will travel across the floor panes with heavy (nice coat) application of paint to any panel that hung down. Such as the front frame rail, floor pan ribs near the out side edge, convertible support, rear spring forward mount.

In addition the rear wheelwell over the sound deadener and red oxide normally receive a nice coat of paint as does the rear frame rail in that same area as well as the area behind it. 90% of the time the sheet metal drop that holds the gas tank also received some coating also.

8- Engine Compartment Black was then applied. No attempt was made to black out the bottom of the frame rails but some black was applied to hide the outside surfaces of the strut rod mounts and lower A arm mounts either directly or indirectly.

On this year and plant the complete of the wheel side of the front wheel wells were blacked out at this time unlike other plants

Transition from engine compartment black to body color at fender lips produced a soft edge (free hand or spray mask) ON TOP of the transition joint normally

At the bottom black over floor color some where in the 30 degree firewall panel (bottom or top depending on who applied it)

9- Black Out - At another point the pinch weld was blacked out using a mask of some time (produced a fade rather than a sharp tapped edge) or free hand (some did creep up onto the quarter panel a bit

This again produced some black over spray (heavier on closer panels - such as the front foot boxes) on front frame rail, panel drops. Overspray distance and coverage is normally less then exterior color likely due to lower pressures used during application.

This was done before the front fender were installed

Have seen this done on even "dark" colored cars but common practice is to accept this practice on all but dark exterior paint cars

At the same time many (not sure why not all) the rear wheel wells were blacked out with the same paint. This again will produce black over spray onto the rear frame rails at wheel well and rear frame rail

10- Firewall sealer - After brake lines, dash to engine compartment wiring, master cylinder, heater hoses, steering column and brake booster (if so equipped) were installed, sealer was applied around each item that traveled through the firewall to seal it.

Way Later -
After all the front sheetmetal, suspension.... pretty much all together the front wheel wells received a final coating of sound deadener. Each car could receive a little or allot (not sure why the differences - worker or destination?)

The minimum appears to be a 10-12" section in front of the shock tower and a similar area behind the shock tower on the wheel side of the inner fender panels. In addition a light to heavy coat over the wheel side of the firewall area.

In other cars the wand was passed a couple of times along the top of the fender, along the splash shields to fender edges as well as over a larger area of the inner fender panels forward and reward of the shock tower. This application did not produce sound deadener on front spring cover as it did at other factories and years


Rear Wheelwells - Wanted to spend a second or two describing the rear wheelwells a little more as it is difficult to paint a picture of the final produce in just words.

Looking at the rear wheel wells for cars from this factory and this year you would normally see at the outer edge of the wheelwell to quarter panel is bare steel with an approx 1" brush seam of black seam sealer spread. Approx 3-4" from the edge would be bare at the top (tappering to 1" at the front and rear of the wheelwell) or showing a little soft red oxide.

Inward from that we would normally see sound deadener with red oxide over, then further in we would pick up the body color, black out or a mix over sound deadener . Which would continue down to the frame rail and on to it.

This is all a product of the steps, method of application and workers. Of course the upper areas would not receive as much or any body color other than what would be produced by spraying the lip on the rear quarter panel. More overspray would be produced at the forward and rear surfaces of the wheelwell than the top just because of body mechanics of application

 

[Fast68back]

Here is mine, definitely not concourse. The engine bay is a semi gloss urethane, the under carriage and the outer aprons are sprayed with a bedliner material. This was before I swapped the GR2's for Bilsteins.