Monday, March 5, 2012

A Mystery to Solve--Bottom of the Floorpan Paint

After getting the Mustang on the rotisserie, work on the car has come to a screaming halt.  My 88 year old mother-in-law who lives with us was hospitalized a week ago this past Friday.   She is getting better, but early last week, we were ready to plan for a funeral.  Her recovery will be a long one, especially at her age and finding out her heart function is decreased quite a bit.   It's a reminder we won't live forever in this world, but faith in Jesus will carry us into the next.  So until we get her health situation stabilized and planned, work on the Mustang will be tabled.

However, I have spent some time looking at the car and have definitely determined that the underside of the car was painted black with the same paint as the engine compartment.   Here is some photo documentation of the paint.    The picture below was taken from the rear of the car looking forward  on the driver's side.  It's the front leaf spring perch area.  There is definitely black paint here and on the rear frame rail.


This picture is of the same area but taken along the left rocker panel.  The original turquoise paint is visible along with the black.  But there appears to be a band about 1/2" long where it looks like red oxide primer is visible.  But there's still black painted along the rocker on both sides.


Here is a photo from the right side of the car.   Same deal as the left...


I've emailed Bob Perkins via Mustang Monthly to get his thoughts on this.  I have no idea why this car would have been painted black unless it had something to do with the rare color of Tahoe Turquoise of which only 629 Mustangs out of 317,000 were painted that color.

So I throw this out to the Mustang masses to see if anyone has a clue as to why this is black and not red oxide.  I certainly don't want to mess up the restoration with the incorrect color on the floor pan, even tho' most people probably don't look or don't care what color it is.  But being an x-anal engineer, it matters to me.

6 comments:

  1. Dennis, This has been discussed at length on the VMF over the years. Ford used whatever they had on hand at the factory for the undercarriage and would mix their regular red oxide primer with leftovers to go further and use these mixes on the undercarriage. Here's such a thread: http://forums.vintage-mustang.com/vintage-mustang-forum/538982-typical-color-68-s-underside.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I remember reading about the "potluck" of paint used for primer. I know I could go ahead and paint it a tone of red oxide to match the interior, but I'm still wondering about the black since it's obviously not a mix of colors. I'll probably end up doing the red oxide unless Bob Perkins sheds some light that would point to painting it black. I have awhile before I have to worry about paint anyway.

      Delete
    2. One of the posts on that thread I referenced on the VMF said that his Dearborn car had an untouched black undercarriage like yours. I would hazard that in some cases, they maybe had engine compartment paint left over and just carried on with the undercarriage to use it up. Good luck in your quest! :-)

      Delete
  2. Car Archeology :) Dennis, I've also read where they came either way depending on what plant they were produced at. Try this website:

    http://concoursmustang.com/

    Always a bunch of guys on-line debating rear axle grease paint marks :)

    rj

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. RJ, Thanks for the link. After doing some checking, it appears that some of the mystery has been resolved. Apparently, the pinch welds along the rocker and other places (e.g. lower rear quarter panels) was sprayed black to hide the pinch weld flange to make it less noticable. That's what I'm seeing on the rocker panels. I don't know how it was applied, but it doesn't look like a wide spray nozzle was used cuz there's minimum overspreay. I'll take a picture tonight of the right rocker and post it tomorrow. Great website. Thanks again for pointing it out.

      Delete
    2. http://forums.vintage-mustang.com/concours-forum/556501-paint-sequence-68-san-jose-car.html

      A rather long discussion on black fade on the pinch weld.

      rj

      Delete