Did the factory use the grey thin ropes that I always called dum dum, for sealing the door water shields and the air vents in the kick panel? Or did they use black in some places, grey in others etc?
My '69 has grey on the door water shields, can't say about the kick panels.
Al
The compound I have seen on Kick panels had a tan appearance. This was on two vehicles both 68 with AC. Other smay be able to confirm or disprov ethis. I believe that neither of these vehicles had the panles out previously. This is the only part I have seen Tan on however.
It was very close to the gray 3M Dum Dum but it had a string in it, presumably to help with handling the stuff. You can use the 3M strip caulk in a box to be very close to original minus the string. Plumbers putty works well too. :)
-Mark.
This is what I use and was also recommended on another thread.
3M strip caulk part#08578 black
You can get it at pretty much any automotive supplies dealer , Napa, O'reilly etc.
I had an SS in H.S. and it was only 6 years old so most of the stuff was original. The kick panel had grey sealer but there was black on the door shields. I just wondered if there was a specific kind for certain areas or if they just used both or whatever was available. I know there is a lot that we know about the assembly process, but some of these little details are scarce it seems. I would like to know what people that restore cars use for a reference to get all these details.
On my car kick panels were sealed with grey seam sealer from a tube and dries hard. See photo. It's available from auto body shops in a caulk tube. The dum dum was used on the water shields and lower window track bolt. Strip Caulk is the same stuff.
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d80/pex68/DSC00189.jpg)