Hi Freddie,

You are correct. No masking done at the factory when it came to painting the car. It was painted assembled as one piece, therefore, interior and such all got overspray and a light coating of color.

Since I’m painting it in stages, I mask off what was already painted so overspray doesn’t get on the fresh clear, that’s all that’s for. Once unmasked, it’ll all look like it was painted as one piece. I do it in stages since painting everything at once is at least a 12hr process from start to finish. And, I’d be 105lbs and probably dead afterwards! Doing it like this makes it manageable, I’m not rushed, and I can concentrate on the task rather than feel overwhelmed by how much painting is ahead of me. I may do the door jambs over the weekend if I don’t have to fly and then the only thing left will be the exterior.:smile:

A unique thing I did was hang the fender tag from the window channel by the factory parts tag remnant that was originally there.:eek2: It made for a good hook to hang it on. On this car, the tag was secured to the inner fender with a screw and then bent up while painting. After paint, the tag was bent back and the other end fastened with another screw that was unpainted. I installed a screw on the inner fender and painted it while doing the engine bay. Now it’ll look correct when installed with a slight bend on the corner with a painted screw, and the other end an unpainted screw!:laugh:

My Super Bee was a Lynch Road car and as such, the tag was hung on the window channel or column mount and could have received only a dusting of color, no color, or a lot of color. Just depends on what the painter did. No bend in the tag and no painted screws.

Neat stuff!!:scholar:

Cheers:beers:
Dave

For a body guy, you're not a bad pilot!

Well, thanks! But shouldn't that be "For a pilot, you're not a bad body guy! ":hmmm::biggthumpup::tongue:

But speaking of that, I had to do that pilot thing yesterday (of course:rolleyes:) due to some repositioning of aircraft around or system. Packed flights... that's a good thing for job security! :laugh:

So today the door jambs get painted and here's the details on the fender tag. You can see the slight bend in the tag on the left side with the painted screw. goggles:biggthumpup:

Cheers:beers:
Dave

Gotta love those details! Even the original, assembly line, dome-headed screws, too. One painted, one natural finish.

After seeing your restoration work, I'd trust you in any aircraft, Dave.

Thanks for that, Tim! If I know you're on the plane I'll insist on complimentary adult beverages! :beers:

Yep, Steve-O! See that little notch on the fender tag? Original! Jambs are waiting on clear as we speak! Going to start ripping apart the suspension later today as we discussed and start blasting the parts.

More soon....

Cheers:beers:
Dave

Roger that! Already searching the interwebs for parts. I have been hearing horror stories about Moog lower control arm bushings for mopars not being manufactured to the right size in the past few years, so I am looking for alternatives. (the inner diameter where the stud is pressed in, was built too loose and the stud just spins. Anyone else heard about this?)

I haven't had any issues with those but I haven't done them since the Bee. I guess we'll find out! And if anyone can have issues..... it's me! :hmmm:

Jambs are painted! While that was curing and with nothing else to do:grin:, I jumped over and disassembled the suspension in preps for blasting, replacing, and detailing.

Also found this green marking on the idle arm mount when I pulled it off. I've seen this green mark before on Hamtramck cars and St. Louis cars but it's usually on the engine mount point on the a-frame. :dunno:

It'll go back like original! Gotta lift the engine then pull the k-frame out to start the cleaning and repaint.:cool2:

More to come...

Cheers
Dave

Yes Dave, they used a different setup to keep the trunk down....but evidently decided it was a little quicker just painting the trunk latch.
Late, late cars skipped the cowl blackout in 70. 71's didn't have it.
All my purple cars had headlight, rad cradle area blackout. The bottom of the rad cradle didn't get hit...with blackout and pretty well no body color. It should show mostly dip color and maybe a misting of purple.
The correct way to do the cowl and rad/headlight area blackout is have 6-8 beers and have Beck's Bolero blasting through your speakers. No masking! Although you have to really like factory sloppy! Hood hinges almost always show overspray from the cowl blackout procedure.
A lot of cars had battery tray blackout as well. Some neat, some not so much!

Cowl and rad area

Interesting, Jim. I have the factory bulletins describing the black out and where it goes. Didn’t know about the battery tray blackout. You have some reference photos of that? :confused2:

What I think is funny is that you mentioned the lower radiator cradle part not getting a whole lot of color or blackout. I’ve even seen the lower edges of the rockers just covered with a slight mist of color. But in regards to that, the common belief is there was some kind of “pit” that the car rolled over and the guy spraying the blackout was in there spraying upwards. No such “pit” existed to my knowledge, and no photos exist if this “pit”. I always found that myth funny. Think about it, if there was one, wouldn’t that bottom portion of the radiator support get a full coat? And furthermore, you think they’d shove some dude in a pit all day just to spray one section of a car that would take about :30 seconds? What’s he going to do in between cars? It’s not like cars were heading down the line so fast that guy would be doing 2500 a day!:laugh: And if he was in a pit, how’d he reach the other areas of the grille to be sprayed? Would he be halfway in the pit so he’d have to duck every time a car came his way or he’d be run over on the assembly line? And how would they keep others from falling into this pit? Or if they did, do they now become “pit people”?!? See, think about it logically and it just doesn’t add up. :scholar:

Thanks for answering all my questions! You’ve forgotten more stuff than I’ll ever know...ever!:laugh:

Beers and Beck then blackout to come!:beers:

Cheers
Dave

One magazine writer has forever been saying it's from a pit.
Looking at original cars will show exactly where the person was spraying from. I don't think they ever looked at the factory bulletins!
No question - it's from the top on E-Bodies.
I'll dig up some battery tray blackout pics. Mostly seen on lighter colors - but on darker colors sometimes as well. And not on every car.
And then there is the rocker blackout....

Don't believe the magazine writers. :-)

(I was one - a tech editor for Mopar Muscle, back in the 90's). When lazy they don't bother doing their own research and just quote other people who didn't do their research either.

Remember how for most of the 1970's, they would always repeat the same crap about Charger Daytonas and Plymouth Superbirds being factory equipped with fiberglass nose cones? That drove me nuts!

I believe in what I see and lean on a few in the hobby that have seen more!
I do remember the fiberglass nose cone debacle - Lol.
Your Purple Fish is coming along nicely! It's just too bad the restorer keeps dragging his heels! ;)

Here is an original paint FJ6 T/A - battery tray and some of the inner fender that got hit with black-out.
The T/A's and AAR's cowl and fender blackout (Organosol was used on them only) was done neater (masked) at the cowl area because of the fender Organosol.

I think I see something in that photo: could it be that the blackout you see around the battery tray area was actually the overspray coming through the small square opening to left of the radiator open area that happened when the front end blackout was done? It lines up perfectly with that square opening.

Some of it - yes. Good detective work!
Check out the lower core support - towards the front. No way was that black sprayed from below.

Jim,

Interesting, but I think that tray was replaced, no? It’s a uniform color, no overspray around it if it was shot in the car, and there is one body color bolt on the forward portion of the tray. If that tray was blacked out in the car there would definitely be more overspray around it, I’d think. Just throwing that out there. You can see the overspray on the inner fender from the fender black out (top portion crisp, lower portion not so much), so I’d think that if the tray was blacked out inside the car there would be a little a little haze around it everywhere.

Inner portions of that area show overspray undercoating from the wheel well since the cam adjuster covers were not installed during that time. The covers when installed, squished the undercoating remnants that were sprayed around it sloppily. It was like that on my Bee as well. These clues are fun stuff!!

I know, I know...I’m dragging my feet! But I’m back from getting my Instructor ratings reinstated so now I can teach you to fly so you can get down here and supervise all this trivial stuff followed by adult beverages!:cool2:

Back on Reserve the next 6 days. More updates to come with color hopefully by the weekend!:biggthumpup:

Cheers
Dave

Hi Dave
Yes, the tray was removed, repaired (battery acid pitting) and re-installed. But it originally showed a bunch of blackout.
Somewhere I have a few pics of some of my past cars and pics I got from Roger Gibson and Frank Badalson over the years, showing some original blacked-out battery trays. It was not always done. I'll try and dig those up, for research reasons :)

See if they having matching ballistic trajectory patterns from the square entry window in the rad support. It’s the “Magic Overspray Theory”, I tell ya!

I’m telling ya...if it was from shot from a Sata gun from the front right side the overspray would be back and to the left. If the overspray came from the front, then the shot had to be from the gun behind and to the right. If you base your argument on the Molnar Film frame 313, you can clearly see the overspray is back and to the left....back and to the left......wait, what were we talking about?!?:bs::hmmm:

Next thing you’ll tell me is there was only one painter doing the shooting! :rolleyes2:

Cheers:beers:
Dave

Conspiracy theories eh????

I'm a firm believer in the single painter theory...and he's in a paint booth in Texas right now!

What about the grassy knoll?:crazy::laugh:

All I know is I want to see more purple posts.........puhlease!!!!:grin:

Fear not, Mens! I’m back from reinstating my Flight Instructor’s certificate and more importantly, back from the paint shop yesterday with the remaining supplies for Crusty! On the way home, they sent us directly over the top of DFW and it was all I could do to not reply with “American” on the radio when talking to ATC!:haha::eek2:
Got a good shot of the terminals in the background.

So today is wet sand the car one last time, wash, wipe, and mask. Then a cleaning of the shop. If I don’t get called out on a trip, a production of purple pictures a plenty will permeate profusely from this post by protruding poignantly in a parade of purple pomp!:dunno:

Prost!:beers:

Dave

Nice picture, Dave.

How many G's are you pulling at that angle? ;)

I was sitting at DFW looking out the window when Delta 191 came in back on 8-2-85. One of the white storage tanks on the NE side of the field still has a dent in it.

Isn't that the one that tried landing during a microburst?


Now back to our regularly scheduled programming....

Yep. Saw the whole thing.

That was the crash that was the catalyst to airlines ramping up training and focusing on microbursts. Much like the Eastern L-1011 in the Everglades which heralded in Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning Systems (GPWS) which alerts the crew to how close they are to terrain in the area.

Fear not, folks!:biggthumpup: Purple is a coming, but I had to fly the past few days unexpectedly which is backing things up. That job thing keeps getting in the way! And at 105 here, it’s too hot to paint so I’m finishing up the suspension details today and I’ll be ready to shoot when it cools down!! :cool2: I’m hoping tomorrow night for purps!!

Suspension update a little later,...:3gears:

Cheers:beers:
Dave

I imagine at that temperature, it would be spraying dust out of the gun instead of paint...Hey isn't that how powdercoating works? Spray that dust and then roll the car out into the sun and let it bake...

:-)

Purps tonight! 8hrs of final 400 wet, two wipe downs, and a mask fest that would ward off any cough the Chinese can throw at it! Where's my mask emoji? :hmmm:

Way too hot right now, so I'll start painting around 8pm. Gonna be a long purple night! :biggthumpup:

Cheers:beers:
Dave

But meanwhile, the suspension is all blasted and new bushings installed in the lower control arms. First step is removing the pivot shaft which also removes the inner sleeve of the lower bushing. That gets a slight cut and then separated with a chisel. Soon as it rotates it pops right off. Then it is time to remove the rest of the bushing. It works best to beat the lip of the bushing edge over creating a flange which you can weld a piece of 3/16 plate steel too. Install in the press upside down, 1/2 piece of rebar through the opening, then press the bushing remnants out!

Installing the new bushing isn't too hard, but installing the shaft is tricky since you can push the inner bushing back out. Installing a 11/16 deep socket as a stop allows you to press the shaft in all the way down (ohhhhy yyyyyeah, baby!:hmmm:).

Final detail on these parts tomorrow but the cosmoline won't be here for the LCAs until Monday.:bs:

Cheers:beers:
Dave

Here's a pic of the pivot shafts getting pressed in and how the socket fits. Also found remnants of red paint on the end link adjuster nuts. My Bee had these as well. So it appears a dab of red on the nuts after inspection? Jim... you seen that before on the 70s?:hmmm:

Then after blasting the tie down brackets, I noticed this one had H7 on it. I think this was probably labeled incorrectly or it could be a H for the "Hind" area, since they are installed on the rear frame rails. 7 could be the 7th version of this thing since they probably changed the design monthly to screw with restorers 50 years later. :eek2:

....but then I flipped it over and realized it was LH for left hand.:biggthumpup:

Cheers:beers:
Dave

Paint!!:eek2::headbang:

Now I need to cut out the 21,643 bugs stuck in it:thumbsdown::rolleyes2:

Cheers:beers:
Dave

As long as the bugs were purple we should be good!

Yes Dave - seen that a few times.
Also the adjuster arms are always dipped with a certain color paint. sometimes both sides are the same color - sometimes not....weird. I usually see blue and/or orange. I'll try and dig up some pics....