My rear axle housing assembly is rebuilt and refinished but not yet installed back into the chassis. Today I was up at Paragon and they had the rolling chassis for "Rex" their 1958 project car in the showroom. The rear axle housing had a BIG ugly splash of yellow paint across the top of the housing. The NCRS Tech Info Manual and Judging guide for 61-62 makes no reference to paint markings on the housing. What is correct for a '62? Thanks.
-
-
C1 Rear axle housing assembly inspection marks?
PS: Should've had C1 in my title. -
Re: C1 Rear axle housing assembly inspection marks
Clare -
The yellow "splash/stripe" marking is correct - many variations of it have been seen, all of which were originally covered by the chassis blackout operation prior to body drop.Comment
-
Re: C1 Rear axle housing assembly inspection marks
My 59 had the mark on the top and bottom also smaller marks connecting them across the back of the housing page 84 of the judging manual says yellow inspection marks may be seen on top of the black paint half the people i ask say it is supposed to visible and the other half say covered my car seemed to have the marks above the black paint but my rear was covered with about an inch of undercoating which i removed so it was difficult to tell where the marks were if someone else could chim in and give a definite answer to this it would be appreciated
bobComment
-
Re: C1 Rear axle housing assembly inspection marks
Bob, John was an engineer at GM and spent some time at the St. Louis assembly plant during his career. Dennis Clark, a former NCRS team leader and '62 Judge remarked in a related thread, https://www.ncrs.org/forum/tech.cgi/...es/read/110484
that he believes that only the frame was painted (dipped) with the asphalt based chassis black out. Apparently the front crossmember, and rear axle housing were painted with a low grade black semi gloss paint, probably an enamel but I don't know for sure and the NCRS manuals don't specify for my car, a '62. If that's the case, then the inspection marks would be on top of the axle housing over the black paint. They would have gotten covered with the final asphalt based black out treatment, as John says, after chassis assembly but prior to the body drop. The late Dale Pearman also expressed this view, many of his solid axle postings are in the archives. I have seen restored cars done both ways on the judging field but don't know how they scored. I believe the concensus is that the inspection marks mostly got blacked out prior to the body drop. Some cars also got some dealer applied undercoating, like yours and mine, which also may have covered frame and chassis inspection marks. I plan to leave inspection marks visable for my restoration but I'd like some clarification on possible point deductions prior to actual Flight Judging. However, I believe deductions are minimal in this regard.Comment
-
Re: C1 Rear axle housing assembly inspection marks
The C1 rear axles were painted with semi-gloss black enamel at Detroit Gear & Axle as a completed assembly, and the yellow housing stripe was hand-applied on top of that paint (along with a yellow circle around the fill plug if it was a Posi axle). That was oversprayed with the asphaltic glossy chassis blackout paint at St. Louis before body drop, and whatever undercoating treatment a dealer might apply was on top of that. However the finished appearance varies from what judges want to see is a minor "finish" deduction.Comment
-
Re: C1 Rear axle housing assembly inspection marks
Thanks John for the detailed assembly explanation. Now we know what would be the "right way" to do a restoration. I'm thinking I want to leave my inspection marks showing, so I know a minor deduction will be forthcoming. I might consider using a slight amount of chassis blackout prior to the body drop but I don't see the point of covering inspection marks completely. What's the point of putting them on if you cover them except to leave them for the next Corvette "archeologist". I guess the factory did it that way to "clean up" ugly identifying marks and give a more uniform appearance.
"However the finished appearance varies from what judges want to see is a minor "finish" deduction."Comment
Comment