Do I have to remove drip rail for painting??

[scgamecock]

It appears to be a pretty in depth project to remove the drip rail including removing the rear qtr windows.  Do I really need to remove the drip rails to paint or can I just tape them up?  I know that the preferred method would probably be to remove the rails but I would really like to avoid it if possible.

 

[turtle5353]

Depends how nice you want it. You can get away with just taping them, but you have a chance of your paint lifting in those areas if not prepped properly. For just a couple hours more of work you can have all that trim off pretty easily and save yourself hours of masking later and have a piece of mind to know there are no contaminants in that area. A paint job is 90% prep.

 

[73pony]

Remove them. The jack wagon that painted my car before I purchased it just taped them off. It looks like shit. I will eventually be stripping the car down and painting it correctly.

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

The roof rails on the Mach 1 or sportsroof is a known place for water leaks especially just above the rear side window. They did sorry job working the joints there. You will find out is much easier to paint a car taken completely apart than masking it over and over.

When you pull the roof rail off take an old phillips screw driver and hit each screw with a hammer with the driver in it. That breaks the rust loose. You will be shocked at how bad it is rusted under there. When you go back on do not use the foam tape the factory used. Use the ribbon windshield sealer or rope calk that does not harden. Needs to flex.

My car leaked like a sieve when new. I had 2" of water in my rear floor two days after I took deliver of the brand new car. The roof rail was the leak.

The windshield and back glass also needs to come out. There will be rust in the bottom corners of the rear and probably rust under the bottom of the windshield where trash collects and stays wet.

You will probably need to do cowl work also.

Last year when I tore down the crashed vert for parts it took only about 30 hours to tear the entire car apart. I did not just tear it apart everything was bagged and tagged and put in containers. It does not take a lot of work to take them apart and makes life so much easier when doing the body work.

The factory painted the cars with front fenders and hood off to allow painting the door ends and A post easier and better. The doors and trunk were on the cars.

When young I could tear a 65 mustang down in a couple days by myself. At 70 you do slow down.

 

[Fabrice]

The roof rails on the Mach 1 or sportsroof is a known place for water leaks especially just above the rear side window. They did sorry job working the joints there. You will find out is much easier to paint a car taken completely apart than masking it over and over.

David,

Do you know if some optional/aftermarket rails were ever made to address this problem? 

When I was driving my 73 daily long ago, I needed had a piece tape at the corner of the to prevent the water to enter.

Simply because the rail ends too early and guides the water in the corner.

Here a quick and dirty illustration on some pict found online, left:where the water goes when parked in rain, right:the missing rail that could prevent this.

As the prob is on both coupes and fastbacks, I wonder if at some point something was made for this?

 

[scgamecock]

Thanks guys! Since I will have to pull the rear quarter windows out I will go ahead and convert them to roll downs. I think there is a thread on the forum somewhere with all of the parts needed and how to do it.