Black out finishes in a 68 engine compartment

[Chuck R.]

As I have a bare chassis that's soon to have the power plant cradled back where it belongs, and with the shroud and core support close to being cleaned up and re-finished, I am curious what the sequence was in the engine compartment blackout process.

Was the body (with the core support and shroud in place) setting on the frame when the black out of the engine bay occured?

I'll go out on a limb and "assume" that the core support was hanging on the nose already painted and that the shroud was seting on the assembly line painted and waiting to be installed AFTER the black out process.

Am I semi close?

Thanks,

Chuck

[Jack H.]

Re: Black out finishes in a 68 engine compartment

Rad core support was installed to strengthen/support the front end of the body when it traveled through the paint booth on a 'mule' tug. Body was painted then blackout was done. Fully painted body met the chassis on the final line at body drop...

[Chuck R.]

Re: Ok..............

Then the (I'll assume already painted) core support got oversprayed from the black out process then right Jack?

[Patrick H.]

Re: Ok..............

Correct.

My Sunflower Yellow 72 even has obvious body color overspray on it.

Patrick

[Chuck R.]

Re: So the sequence would be

that the fan shroud got painted, installed in the nose, subjected to black out overspray and then, body color overspray.

Makes sense.

Thanks to one and all for the responses.

Regards,

Chuck

[Michael H.]

Re: So the sequence would be

Chuck,

As Patrick and others have mentioned, the core support would have a few different coatings, especially near the outer ends. The support arrived at the plant already coated (dipped) in black. The entire nose fiberglass was then asembled including the core support. After the nose was assembled and installed on the body as one piece, the body was primed, including the fender skirts and ends of the core support. Next would be body color, which also would have gotten on the outer ends of the support. Finally, the entire engine compartment was painted black, including the areas of the core support that were painted body color from the previous operation.

If I remember correctly, the fan shroud was already painted black as it arrived on the line. I believe it was temporarily positioned on front of the engine before body drop, then assembled to the core support after the body was in position.

[Chuck R.]

Re: So much for masking it off huh Mike

Poor thing must have an identity complex, black then grey then color then black again.

Too bad the bottom of the support didn't get that much paint and primer on the bottoms. Maybe they wouldn't have rotted out so badly

Thanks for the info,

Chuck

[Chuck S.]

Re: So the sequence would be

"If I remember correctly, the fan shroud was already painted black as it arrived on the line. I believe it was temporarily positioned on front of the engine before body drop, then assembled to the core support after the body was in position."

Temporarily positioning the shroud on front of the engine before body drop...That's what I figured out I would do before my 70 body drop. I still don't konw how I got that shroud out of there. Even with the engine and radiator out, it was like wrestling the devil...and, that was BEFORE I was concerned about scratching things up.

[Jack H.]

Re: So much for masking it off huh Mike

"Too bad the bottom of the support didn't get that much paint and primer on the bottoms. Maybe they wouldn't have rotted out so badly"

Go look at a Bowtie/Survivor '63-65 Corvette... You'll see GOBS of exterior paint hanging in drippy bubbles from the underside of the radiator core support!

That's a fine detail LOTS of restorers miss as they leave the rad core support painted nice shinny black with a CRISP parting line between the lower front valence panel's exterior color and the core support's vendor supplied black enamel! I deduct for restored cars that lack exterior paint on the lower edge of the core support. There ought to be just as much paint there as is on the adjacent front clip panel...

Plus, if you study an untouched original car in this area, you can often see ghost lines where the paint shop's mule tug lines naturally masked exterior paint from the bottom of the core support. That's a real nice little factory concours detail to mimic... The tug lines ran almost directly below the front bumpers' center support rails.

Later mid-year cars ('66/67) and Sharks lack the amount of exterior overspray that '63-65 cars had because the core support was angled back (slanted toward the cockpit) to allow taller radiators to be installed. The front body panels then acted as a natural paint mask....

[Brad S.]

radiator install

Was the radiator on the core support in this process or was it installed later?

[Chuck R.]

Re: radiator install

With as fast as they were putting these puppys together Brad, I would venture that they installed the radiator after the body (with core support) was resting on the chassis.

Chuck

[Chuck R.]

Re: That's interesting Jack

As my "driver" will be NCRS incorrect in many ways, I'm attempting to create the proper look to the larger components that aren't easy to remove and replace/restore so that when the next new owner takes possession of this fine example of automotive engineering, they can at least dump their funds into the "correct" expensive swap out items I passed on.

If I'm lucky, the smell of burned off paint, oils and gasket cement along with that wonderful blue haze will be filling the ole garage in another month.

Oh what a happy day THAT will be.

Thanks for the assist Jack.

Chuck

[Michael H.]

Re: So much for masking it off huh Mike

Jack,

Pretty sure that the lines you describe in the front lower panel color coat are from the vertical body support braces of the truck that the body is bolted to during all paint operations. Do you see two per side, roughly four inches apart?