Camaro Research Group Discussion > Restoration
CORRECT UNDER BODY COLOR
kdka:
What is correct paint/sealer to be used for underneath '69 camaro convertible body shell. The car upper body has recently been painted white, original color. Also which areas, if any of the underbody receive different color or types of paint/sealers?
thanks.
68rsssrag:
Depending on where the car was built. My Norwwod is all 30 degree semigloss black. This applies to underbody. inside floors, etc.
Arno
william:
Having spent more time under 1st gen Camaros than in them I assure you they were not uniformly 30% gloss black.
It is likely the 1st painting step after the body shell was fabbed was to coat the underbody with some sort of black finish. The next step was grey primer, this being done with doors & trunk lid attached as there is no paint under the hinges. This was done manually until 1970 when bodies were dipped in red primer. The undercarriage was not masked during primer app and there is always primer on the underbody in varying degrees. The trans tunnel on our '67 was almost entirely grey. The final color coat was also done without masking the underbody which is quite obvious when looking at an OE paint Camaro in a lighter color. I've seen Z11 underbodies that were almost completely white. At some point the firewall blackout was applied. This was done with a masking unit loosely placed over the cowl. This left a feathered edge across the top, not the taped line incorrectly done on many restorations. There was a final underbody step that involved touching up areas that were visible such as the rear wheel wells. Take the rear axle snubber brackets off a '69 and you will find body color on the frame rails. On Van Nuys Camaros the fuel tanks were often painted during this step. All wheel wells then had undercoating applied.
The beautiful, uniform 30% gloss black underbody is show car stuff. They did not look like that as built.
68rsssrag:
William
You are correct but the question was the underside of the car. I've seen lots of unrestored Norwood cars and the underbody is 30 degree black applied way upstream, this was similar to the firewall spray but he latter was hand applied and usually was a bit on the grey side of black for some reason. John Z did a great list of the various finishes and the production processes in the plant for how and when paint was applied on TeamCamaro a year or so ago. Worth the serach and read.
Arno
william:
Arno I've been involved with the cars for 30+ years and know whereof I speak.
Chassis, underbody, undercarriage call it what you want. From the rear axle forward they have primer and body-color overspray in varying degrees. There have been several excellent chassis photos of OE paint cars posted and they all have overspray: Charlie Lillards Daytona yellow '69 Z was about 50% yellow underneath. An old issue of the Camaro enthusiast had chassis photos of a Hugger orange '69 SS coupe, plenty of orange on the floor pans. They also did a spread on a Z11 that had so much grey primer on the underbody they re-did it that way. The b&w underbody photos of the Daytona yellow #3 ZL1 in the 8-69 Hi-Perf Cars clearly show a yellow or grey underbody as it is much lighter than the subframe.
John Z worked for Chevrolet. The bodies were painted by Fisher before they "went through the wall" to Chevrolet.
Once again, the beautiful, uniform 30% gloss black underbody is show car stuff. They did not look like that as built.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page