1969 Rally Sport Door Blackout

[Edgemontvillage]

I'm fitting the RS headlight doors and grill on my 1969 RS Z project and a friend (..we'll call him Eddie M (enio45)) mentioned that on at least 2 Rally Sport equipped cars he's worked on, the inside corners of the headlight door covers where they are screwed to the backing plate, had been brush painted black to blend with the black plastic grill. If not painted black (or silver on black cars), the corners will show body color through the grill when the headlight doors are closed. Looking through my photo library and searching on-line I haven't been able to find an example of an original paint 69 Rally Sport optioned car (including Pace Cars) to confirm this blackout treatment. If you have an original paint Rally Sport optioned 69 would you please post if you have the door cover blackout. Thanks.   

Inside Corners of Headlight Door Cover that would have received black out treatment.


Grill See-through showing (Hugger Orange) Body Color 

[firstgenaddict]

Lloyd,
Here are a couple of photos of the 26k mile 69 RS SS conv I found for Dave and I believe one of Charlies friends owns now.
Look at the lower mount tab on the first photo... IT DOES APPEAR TO BE BLACKED OUT.

[KevinW]

I pulled these off an RS back in the early 80s, they are very patiently waiting for me to restore the car they were saved for. Interesting the black appears to be the base coat (same as underside) and the color coat is just a light coat that did not extend all the way to the corners.  IMO They do not look like brush paint applied after color coat.

[enio45]

I have not looked , but is there anything in the assembly manual about applying the black out on certain color cars?

The above pic is how i remember one of the cars, the other "looked like" to be brush applied - but it has been a few years and no pics. 

[firstgenaddict]

I am sure the frames were dip painted black as the pacer had black runs in it's headlamp covers.

One thing for sure... Masking the corners would be a lot less trouble than brushing on black out.

EDDIE... BTW, thanks for informing Lloyd about this detail!

[x66 714]

My friend's 01B Los Angeles car doesn't have that done to it. Maybe it was a time thing or a plant thing or a little of both....Joe

[william]

The RS covers received body color on the Chevrolet side. Had the corners required masking, it would have been noted in the AIM as was the lower grill panel.

Would have been a simple matter for the Process Engineer to configure the racking to prevent paint coverage in those areas.

[Dave69x33]

Interesting!

Question: If the blackout on the inner RS headlight cover "tabs" was hand brush painted, would it have been done after the RS headlight bucket subassemblies were installed and before the grille was installed, similar to the way Edgemontvillage shows in his first view?  Otherwise the bright silver Phillips screw heads would be noticeable (and distracting) thru the grille openings.

Ironically, all but one of all the survivor '69 Camaros I have studied so far have been non RS cars. I have pics of an unrestored '69 Pace Car. I will study those pics this evening to look for evidence of the blackout treatment. 

The pictures of the covers that KevinW posted appear to have the red color sprayed to a point as if the tabs were placed in a loose fitting mask to hold the covers when they were sprayed with the color. There is not a defined line from a blackout brush.

[firstgenaddict]

IT could have been how they were hung OR maybe Stood Up in a slotted fixture during painting.
It is difficult to spray them when hanging as they want to act like a gate in the wind.

[enio45]

Interesting would be to see a 10-10 car as they had the silver grill - so that means the doors would have silver painted on the edges - reverse of what we see in the above pics. 

I wish i can find pics of Richard Mayskum's 10-10 RS Z (i had pics) to see what his doors vs grill would look like.

[Dave69x33]

I found the pictures of the survivor, Norwood 03D build, '69 Pace Car that I mentioned earlier.  I included for reference a view of the trim tag along with the blackout on an RS headlight door cover.

As firstgenaddict suggested, it appears the covers were placed in a slotted fixture for color painting.  When you study the pictures, you see evidence of a straight line on the tabs between the color and blackout.

Would like to see pictures of the original screws used to attach the cover to the frame to see if they were silver CAD plated or gray/black phosphate plated.

[firstgenaddict]

When looking at the burgundy covers posted above it dawned on me that they were probably stood up in a fixture for painting. (The fixture would also negate the need for a production note)

IF not mistaken the machine screws are either black zinc or phosphate.

IMHO There really shouldn't be silver on the tabs of a black car...  every other hole through either color grille displays a black background. Thus black in the negative space is what is expected.

[KevinW]

Here is the fine thread machine screw that held the burgundy cover on

[69Z28-RS]

One more example of an original RS louver cover (from my '69 Z29-
RS) with black out area ...

[firstgenaddict]

Interesting would be to see a 10-10 car as they had the silver grill - so that means the doors would have silver painted on the edges - reverse of what we see in the above pics. 

I wish i can find pics of Richard Mayskum's 10-10 RS Z (i had pics) to see what his doors vs grill would look like.

What would seal it up is if the tabs on the black doors showed evidence of the "masking" from the painting fixture. a fuzzy line on the black door in approx the same place.   

[x66 714]

Could a fixture of sort been used to hold the grill & the doors in their natural position during painting? That could help explain the non-defined shadow. I would think that could be helpful to keeping the paint looking the same, especially on metallic paint cars....Joe

[Dave69x33]

Did some homework last night on the hardware for the '69 RS covers.  The AIM covering the Z22 RS headlight door assembly, page 459 calls out screw 9425501 and stamped nut 9419751.  I found the screw in a 2014 AMK Products catalog I have on hand.  I'll double check the website to see if they still list the screw.

Screw 9425501 is an 8-32 x 1/2 with 0.32" OD Phillips head.  AMK's S2 finish = gray/black phosphate, item #B-12568.  This matches the screw finish KevinW posted in his picture.  Heartbeat City Camaro now sells a kit GNL-1179, that includes (4) correct black phosphate screws and (4) stamped thread cutting nuts finished in silver zinc.

KevinW...are your nuts original can you post a pic showing the finish?

BTW...

Noticed in KevinW's picture that the die cast frame plate Det. 11 is dip black painted. The reproduction die cast frames are bare aluminum finish.

I have seen in the comments section of the certification reports that Jerry MacNeish has done, the die cast hinge Det. 16 should be black. This makes since that both pieces would be black dip painted black.

Thanks, Dave

[Dave69x33]

KevinW,

One other question: On the backside of your frame plates there is a captured nut for the screw you showed.  Are the captured nuts also painted black or does it appear they were attached to the frame after the frame was painted?

[KevinW]

I'm glad I did not put the RS box away last night

[enio45]

good info guys!

[Dave69x33]

Great, thanks KevinW!

Your picture is what I expected to see.  Looks like I have some disassembly, painting, and hardware changes to make this weekend!

[KevinW]

Glad to be of help here. Looks like Lloyd has some detail work to do too

[Edgemontvillage]

Excellent photos and forensics, thanks for all the contributions! My RS doors were restored and assembled consistent with what I'm seeing in the thread including mag phosphating the screws and speed nuts (less the blackout of course). It appears the factory paint (color) process for the door covers was to omit painting the corners producing a blackout effect. From the photos posted on this thread there doesn't appear to be any masking lines on the door corners as the body color paint transition to/from the corners is "soft" or even "ragged".  Nor does it appear there was blackout brush painting of the corners as the body color is the top layer of paint and the base, black dip paint is left exposed (Kevin's and Gary's photo posts show this with good detail). A few more questions to consider:

- Was this RS door cover paint process performed throughout 1969 production?
- Was it (standard) practice at both NOR and VN plants?
- Was the blackout a byproduct of painting the door covers poorly or deliberately done for blackout effect?
- Was it done for all paint colors or were some omitted? Did black (10) RS optioned cars receive sliver paint to blend with the silver grill color?

 

[Dave69x33]

Lloyd,

Good questions.  Your restoration looks like it's coming along nicely!  My '69 RS Z28 restoration was initially completed in 2000, but each year I continue to fine tune bits and pieces of the car as I learn more on CRG. I cannot seam to leave "well enough" alone!

[Edgemontvillage]

Lloyd,

Good questions.  Your restoration looks like it's coming along nicely!  My '69 RS Z28 restoration was initially completed in 2000, but each year I continue to fine tune bits and pieces of the car as I learn more on CRG. I cannot seam to leave "well enough" alone!

Thanks for the feedback and contributing to the thread Dave. The discovery process is endless.

[firstgenaddict]

Lloyd here are photos of the black car these were taken months before you bought it, it appears it was "masked" due to a painting fixture it looks like it shows the fuzzy line.. but still black. - this would lead more credence to a fixture which held the covers during the painting operation.

[enio45]

I guess based on this - there was no silver paint applied to the tabs to blend in with the grill - as i previously that was reasonable - but not done.  Agree, it looks like it was masked off somehow. 

Good info

[rszmjt]

My 06A RSZ28 code 72 has no blackout on headlight doors.

[Dave69x33]

James, can you open the doors and place your phone down in the area to get pictures that way?

My assumption is any color car with an Argent silver grille still had blackout to have everything look black behind the grille.

[firstgenaddict]

The photos I have are from 10+ years ago before Lloyd owned the car, which is now owned by the Ferrari dealer in Toronto.

[Dave69x33]

This past weekend I decided to dig out of storage my original RS headlight door back plates to check their condition. It was about 26+ years ago I restored my Camaro. After reviewing the plates, I remembered why I purchased reproduction replacements.  One of the captured nuts was frail and popped off the plate.  I left the plates overnight in lacquer thinner to clean them and remove the old paint. I used a Dremel and ground the hot set rivets to remove one of the captured nuts from the reproduction unit and transferred it to my original back plate.  I used a small bit of solder to hold the nut in place.  NOTE: I found it odd that there were two different style captured nuts attached to my back plates. Fortunately the repro nut was the same design as the missing nut.

I pulled the masking tape edge upward as shown on the RS headlight door covers and carefully sprayed several light coats of black at about a perpendicular angle the cover, to try and copy the blackout spray pattern as shown in other folks' pictures of their unrestored head door covers.  I had some Eastwood Under Hood Black spray paint left over and used it.  It is close in the percent gloss black as the original blackout. Kylon Semi-Flat Black would also be a very close match.  I used isopropyl alcohol to remove a bit of overspray from the long ear tab so that the blackout did not extended too far outside the face of the main RS grille. Personally, I did not want the sloppy look like the Pace Car pic I showed earlier in this discussion thread.

I had a few leftover 9419751 nuts that match up with those KevinW shared with us (rather than use the bright silver zink plated nuts), and ordered a set of the 9425501 screws from Heartbeat City.     

One more detail fixed on my 26+ year restoration!

[Dave69x33]

Here are a few pics of the RS headlight door covers...

[KevinW]

Looking good Dave!

[68camaroz28]

Great information and pics.....
Now I will be looking at every survivor and restoration lol.

[enio45]

nice work!

[Edgemontvillage]

I located a photo of the headlight door from my former black survivor 69 RS/Z. You can see through the grill that the headlight door cover corners where not painted silver to match the grill. 

[Dave69x33]

Thanks Lloyd.

KevinW, can you post a picture of the backside of your RS headlight door covers?  Are they black dipped primer?

[KevinW]

Dave, Yes the backs are black (I assume dip primed, hard to tell, I do not see any drips).  I looked closely at the edge paint coverage.  It appears the paint was applied from the top only.  All edges facing up have the color, all edges facing down are still black.  The sides fade from better coverage on the upper portion fading and showing more black towards the bottom.  This is consistent on both sides.  The sections that were clamped in the fixture do not have any body color on the edges.

Which means the paint fixture must have clamped the inside (screw hole portions) with the covers in their intended mounted positions, then painted with a single swipe with gun angled down. IMO the fixture must be lower than arm height to get the paint coverage that I see. (I tried to get a pic)

[Dave69x33]

Interesting, thanks Kevin.

I believe it's safe to assume the tabs on the RS door covers were not painted Argent silver to match a '69 RS car with an Argent silver main grille. This would have been a tedious and time consuming process to perform on the select random RS black Camaros processing down the assembly line with Argent silver grilles.  We probably need a few more data points to prove this theory.

We can revisit the assembly process report to see when the main grilles were painted (I don't recall) and try to form some correlation when the RS door covers were painted body color.

[Edgemontvillage]

The headlight door covers on my project have been blackout updated (and headlight doors aligned), thanks to Eddie M and all who contributed to the thread.

[Dave69x33]

Lloyd,

You car is looking very nice.

Question: Are the screws that attach your grill stiffener chrome or black oxide finish? Per the '69 Camaro Legends Judge manual, the screws were black oxide. That seams odd but would like to confirm this on a survivor and/or unrestored car.

Thanks,
Dave

[enio45]

looks perfect!!

[Edgemontvillage]

Lloyd,

You car is looking very nice.

Question: Are the screws that attach your grill stiffener chrome or black oxide finish? Per the '69 Camaro Legends Judge manual, the screws were black oxide. That seams odd but would like to confirm this on a survivor and/or unrestored car.
Thanks,
Dave

Hi Dave, the grill stiffener screws should be manganese-phosphate (black), GM generally didn't use black oxide. I've reviewed several survivor cars (RS and non-RS) including my former 10 10 RS/Z (you can see the stiffener screw in the photo in Post #35) and the original retaining screws are always m-p (black).

[Dave69x33]

Thanks Lloyd!

Did you get the screw thru AMK Products or a different supplier?

Do happen to have the item number for the screws?

[Edgemontvillage]

Thanks Lloyd!

Did you get the screw thru AMK Products or a different supplier?

Do happen to have the item number for the screws?

Dave, I don't recall where I got the screws but the parts suppliers all sell them clear (silver) zinc plated (from what I've seen). If you do your own phosphating the screws will need to be treated in hydrochloric or muriatic acid to dissolve the plating before they can be phosphated.

[Steve Shauger]

I'm not sure how I missed this thread. I've attached two pics of a survivor I used to own. The upper and lower screws areas are blacked out. Both doors are identical. The doors were painted body color and then clearly blacked out. I have also seen this on an orange RS/SS L48. Attached pics are a 9B of 68 Nor built car and will look for the Nor 4C HO car pics. Thank Charley for taking the pics for me!

[cook_dw]

Awesome contribution

Thanks Charley.

[Edgemontvillage]

Excellent example, thanks Steve and Charley.

[enio45]

I saw this set recently - notice the black out