Underside finish?

[carcrazyguy]

Trying to decide on how to have the bottom of the 73 Barracuda finished.  Primer (actually paint the color of primer) with the slight over spray or fully painted body color.  The car was factory undercoated but just can't bring myself to have it redone that way.  On the Duster we did lizard skin but not sure that is the best idea for the E-body.

[Skunkworks Challenger]

My 70 Challenger was painted body color at the factory then heavily undercoated.  During restoration I removed all of it then repainted body color with limited undercoating.  Basically undercoating wheel wells and a few other places likely to be hit by rocks and road crud.

[burdar]

As most people know, the factory never completely painted the under side of these cars.(body color) The bodies were dipped in a gray/black primer.(the color varied by plant)The exterior was then sprayed with a red oxide primer. I'm not sure if they sprayed the body color directly over the red primer or if there was a gray primer sprayed on top first.

The under side would have gotten red oxide and body color overspray. Depending on how far the painter wanted to bend over, determined how much or how little overspray was present. Every car had slight variations in the overspray. These cars were painted by people...not by robots like today.

The biggest mistake I made on my car was telling the body shop to completely paint the underside body color. I really wish I would have gone the primer/overspray route. Even though I'm going the Pro Touring route with my Dart, it will be receiving the primer/overspray look.

[Topcat]

As most people know, the factory never completely painted the under side of these cars.(body color) The bodies were dipped in a gray/black primer.(the color varied by plant)The exterior was then sprayed with a red oxide primer. The under side would have gotten red oxide and body color overspray.

I have only observed grey color on OEM underside.
Are you saying it was first Red then Grey overcoat?

I never saw any red color underneath my car and I have owned in since 72.

[burdar]

Hamtramck used a gray dip primer. LA used a black dip primer. All cars no matter the color, were sprayed with red oxide primer. The red oxide primer was used on the top side...not on the bottom.  The bottom would have only received red overspray. The amount of overspray varied car to car.

[burdar]

Here is a paint kit sold by Resto Rick.  It includes the gray or black dip coat, red oxide primer(for overspray) and a light gray primer.(for overspray)  It looks like the red oxide primer was sprayed with a light gray primer before the body color top coat.

http://www.restorick.com/proddetail.asp?prod=PntPolyDipGray

Here are two pictures of my car after initial sand blasting.  You can see the original red oxide primer where the blasting was stopped.





Dave Walden's OE gold Challenger...The first two show the red oxide overspray.  The second two show the amount of body color overspray found on this particular car.  Other cars could of had a lot less overspray.
http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/upload2/4501915-Dsc05277-1.jpg

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/upload2/4566684-Dsc06606-1.jpg

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/upload2/4502609-CopyofChallengerJune200616.jpg

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/upload2/4502626-Copyof100_2512.JPG