65 Frame finishing

[Larry L.]

Its time to paint my 65 frame - Remember this is to look exactly as the Genral made it.
The frame is a good southern frame with little rust. Some one dropped the car onto a set stands under the central cross member, put wedges between from inner reinforcement and frame. The center cross member, front frame reinforcemenst and all body mounts were replaced. Vette Products did a beautiful job on the welding and installation of cross member, reinforcements and body mounts. The frame was then dipped.

The refinish plan:
1. Treat the frame inside and out with Captan Lee's Rust remover. This part is 1/2 done.
2. Spray the frame in and out with Zink Chromate - can still get from AirCraft supplies.
3. Paint inside and out with black Emron.
4. Turn up side down and spray with GM frame paint using a shrubry sprayer so runs go up hill.
5. Put the claw marks on the frame where it was turned over at the factory. I need a set of dimensions as the picture is not very clear of machine that did this.

Any holes in the plan that you can see or pit falls in the scheme of things. Remember this is to be a Judged car.

[John H.]

Re: 65 Frame finishing

Larry -

If you're going to that level of detail with drip direction, the frame was painted (actually flow-coated) at Granite City while vertical; it was hung from the front crossmember, with the rear crossmember closest to the floor.

[Norris W.]

Re: 65 Frame finishing

I haven't had one of my cars judged since the my 2 69's Top Flighted in late 80's/early 90's and we Duntov'd friend's 67 about the same time, so maybe my preferences are obsolete now. In any case, I've had some issues with both Zinc Chromate and Zinc Acrylic (which the auto paint houses try to push as a replacement around here).

I think if I was going to paint a frame nowdays (I have all my stuff semi gloss powder coated now) I'd use one of the black catlized primers, and then topcoat with whatever I was gonna topcoat it with, probably something with a catalyst. There's a black paint that's available from Dupont that's dead right for chassis black. I've had my body shop guy do a couple of underhoods with it, as well as some suspension pieces, but don't know exactly what it is. I think he'd probably tell me, but he claims he pays almost a hundred a quart plus catalyst (which I've always found hard to believe).

Is the GM frame paint any better now than it was 10 or 15 years ago? Back then it was some kind of tar type base and would wash off with gasoline. Unless it's better stuff now, I can't see any reason to use it when it's possible to use modern materials and skip the Imron step in the middle, which I'm not sure is a good idea anyway without knowing how well other stuff will adhere to it.

[Joe M.]

Re: 65 Frame finishing

If you are using Dupont Imron, read the tech sheets as to required surface prep. I use Imron, after blasting and preparing the bare frame I used the dupont etching primer and then shot the Imron.