1965 muffler black out

[Tony S.]

During our Kansas City Chapter judging event last Saturday, I had an opportunity to examine the mufflers from an original 9000 mile black/black 396 car owned by one of our members. I love looking at original cars. The car was lightly freshened up a few years ago before it was triple crowned. The owner replaced the original under-car pipes and mufflers. Fortunately, the owner had the good sense of keeping his original exhaust system after it was removed.

The question of '65 muffler blackout has been a subject of discussion on the judging field. I realize that this example is only one car, but it does serve as evidence of how '65 mufflers were blacked out. I have three photos to share of the passenger side muffler. The driver's side is the same as the passenger side.

The original black out paint is still very evident on these mufflers. The paint was applied to the upper and lower outer half of the muffer. The upper and lower inner half had no paint applied to it (except for the heavy drips from the outer half). The location of this black out makes alot of sense. When you stand next to your car and look through the rear wheel well, the only portion of the muffler that you can see is the outer half. If the factory wanted to obscure the glint of silver metal shining through the rear wheel well, the outer half would have to be blacked out.

Tony

[Hank D.]

Re: 1965 muffler black out

Great photos, Tony. Thanks for sharing.

How much evidence of blackout appeared on the rear suspension components?


Hank

[Tony S.]

Re: 1965 muffler black out

Hi Hank. Good hearing from you. I remember that we discussed that on the judging floor at San Diego nationals. Part of the freshening up of the low mileage car is that the half shafts had been cleaned.

However, there is growing evidence from original '65 cars that before body drop, there was black out paint applied to the top of the half shafts and the top of the strut rods of many cars. I'm not saying that all '65 chasses had black out paint applied to the tops of the half shafts and strut rods, but clearly many do show clear evidence of rear suspension black out. You'll remember Kevin DeWitt's four star bowtie car at San Diego showed obvious black out on the tops of his car's half shafts and strut rods. My own L79 '65 car also had that type of black out as well. I can also tell you that there was black out paint applied to the half shafts on my original '65 396 Arizona car and Gene Leonard's former Benchmark 396 car.

The muffers on the 9000 396 car that I posted is important because finding original mufflers that aren't completed rusted is rare. The photos show a rare glimpse into how the mufflers were blacked out at the factory.

Best,
Tony

[Michael H.]

Re: 1965 muffler black out

The question of '65 muffler blackout has been a subject of discussion on the judging field. I realize that this example is only one car, but it does serve as evidence of how '65 mufflers were blacked out.
Tony

Tony,

Great pictures. The coating on C2 mufflers usually appeared to be similar to that in your pic's.

The mufflers on the unrestored 3000 mile maroon 396 conv looked similar, sprayed from the upper and lower outer side.

Same for the 1500 mile green/saddle 65 FI conv. (I may have good pic's of this from decades ago somewhere)

I think the muffler coating was pretty much standard procedure for every C2 with under car exhaust.

I think my old 396 conv. (that Burroughs restored) had a coating of chassis black on both half shafts. I don't remember if it was only on one side or all the way around the shaft.

I talked about this decades ago but no one seemed to accept the fact that there should be some "final blackout" on the chassis/rear susp and drive components even on 65-67 cars. Not as complete as 63-65 though.

[Tony S.]

Re: 1965 muffler black out

Michael. I always appreciate your input. I bought the Burroughs book (of your former 396 car) at your suggestion. I'll look at it. As for the black out phase, there is undisputable evidence on '65's that black out paint on the suspension before body drop occurred. I've seen some of your '63 line photos that exhibit the black out on the chassis. We continue to see black out on '65's too. I'm not saying that every '65 had black out in the same places; however, I really appreciate an owner who presents his car for judging and who has replicated the drippy, runny blacking out process on the suspension and exhaust. I think it's truer to the car to do it that way if that's how the car was born.

Tony