Firewall & Drive Train Paint

[Pegleg]

A good area to get a perspective on the underside color of your car from the factory is above the gas tank on the trunk floor. I cut a section of the old trunk floor out before sending it out for bodywork to match my mix up to. I used PPG DP90 and DP40LF to get the right hue. The 90 is black and the 40 is green hue. I mixed them to a gray and then added a little more DP40 to shift it a bit more green. In the shade or dark it looks gray in the sun you can barely see a green'ish hue. The other are correct that the majority of colors sprayed in the day or week before your car determines the color shift from black to gray or other variation. I also have never seen an original car to have red oxide under. The earlier 60's models did. San Jose built cars all had red oxide. It is my understanding Dearborn and Metuchen production shifted to slop earlier than 71.

Interesting. The area above my gas tank was the body colour, in my case Pastel Blue. I suspect that the primer colour was underneath this body colour, but both the underside of the trunk area and the adjoining frame rails ( side facing the gas tank) were body colour (heavy overspray). Another area where it was dependent on the assembly line painter and where and how much paint they applied. Cannot stress enough the need to scrape away the crud in various areas of the undercarriage to determine factory applications, for those looking to return the car to near factory appearance.

There is only about 1 square inch of rust on the underside and that is where the rubber drain plug used to be at the bottom of the trunk area on the drivers side. So i will use degreaser and a power washer on the underside to remove every bit of crap then take a lot of pics and then remove some of the sound deadener and take lots more pics.

 

[bkdunha]

Keep in mind pictures are not exact on the color.

 

[Pegleg]

Keep in mind pictures are not exact on the color.

Pictures before and after are for my records only. The tool the sprayer uses is directed straight on to paintwork where it reads the spectrum in the original paint. I will try and find out what the tool is called

 

[Stanglover]

Keep in mind pictures are not exact on the color.

Pictures before and after are for my records only. The tool the sprayer uses is directed straight on to paintwork where it reads the spectrum in the original paint. I will try and find out what the tool is called

Not sure about others, but here in Ontario, Canada, they just refer to it as a "camera" as in "they camera'd the paint". Not good grammar I know, but that's what they say. Probably it's really called a "Spectral Analyzer". That's what was done when I painted my Light Pewter paint as the code (V) was no longer usable. It came out pretty close to original factory paint under the rear window valance.

No doubt this expression will be deputed amongst others!!

 

[73pony]

That's what we call it too.

I would love to see some pics of the engine bay once you get it all cleaned and degreased. Would give me a good goal someday as mine has a nice protective coat of 43+ years of oil and grime.

 

[Stanglover]

That's what we call it too.

I would love to see some pics of the engine bay once you get it all cleaned and degreased. Would give me a good goal someday as mine has a nice protective coat of 43+ years of oil and grime.

You could look at the pics of mine, posted earlier. A good clean engine bay makes any car look better.

 

[Mister 4x4]

A good area to get a perspective on the underside color of your car from the factory is above the gas tank on the trunk floor.

Interesting. The area above my gas tank was the body colour, in my case Pastel Blue.

Mine was "rust." Straight up. :whistling:

Fortunately, my door sticker was intact and validated the patch of unmolested Ford Light Pewter I found on top of the transmission tunnel after removing what was left of the carpet.

The underside, however... not a clue.