Black Tail Light Panel and Rockers

[bkhpah]

Charlie, your car never sat outside a day and was never washed with a hose. I know all the owners from 1971 on personally. It always was in heated dry storage...BKH

[DjD]

How and when during the paint process was the black applied to the tail pan or rockers? I ask because hand application during the assembly line process could have a big impact on final gloss. Too dry of an application or the gun too far from the surface could leave what was meant to be a gloss finish more of a satin or semi-gloss look. On Team Camaro the current argument is the tail panels that are survivor and glossy just got polished and waxed that way over the years... I've polished and waxed a satin finish and got a bit of a sheen but not a real gloss!!

[Mark_C]

My contention on Camaros.org was a) that there was only two blacks available in the plant to paint anything with, the Gloss Tuxedo black, and the 80 percent gloss that went on the firewall, and that b)that the rear was painted following the color coat in the Fisher Blackout booth when the dash top, firewall was painted and as such would have had to have had the same 80% gloss satin paint used on the firewall. However I went back and reread the CRG assembly page:

CRG Camaro Assembly Page

And found:

Discussing the Fisher Paint Process, after body color application, reflow oven but before the blackout booth (firewall painting).

"If the car required Z-28, Z-10, or Z-11 stripes or a black rear end panel or rockers, they were masked and sprayed in the in-line repair booth/oven system after the reflow oven."

So now that it is clear that there was two processes where black paint was being applied (the inline repair booth, and the blackout booth) it would appear that the rear panel, and rockers if applicable should have received Tuxedo black gloss paint. Otherwise everything could have been painted in the blackout booth with the satin paint at one time. This would save time and money, things GM loved.

Seems logical to me from a manufacturing process point of view. Why else would you have two processes. Maybe there are differences between a Norwood car and an LA car, since they had a common GM/Fisher paint booth and did things a little different as far as painting goes.

[Mr. T]

The only cars that received the "satin" blacked-out tailpan was the tuxedo black cars, the other colored cars received the gloss tailpan and rockers, excluding fathom green, burnished brown, dusk blue, burgandy, and tuxedo black on the rockers.

[Mark_C]

Black tail light panels are on every big block SS except for Z10 and Z11 cars. Possibly black cars did not, or they had satin paint, I don't know.

But rocker blackout was only applied to cars with the RPO Z21 Style trim and or Z22 Rally Sport options. Any car with Z21/Z22 got the rocker blackout, except Z10, Z11's and the colors listed below:

1967/68
AA Tuxedo Black
EE Deepwater (Dark) Blue
LL Tahoe Turquoise
MM Royal Plum
NN Madeira Maroon

1969
10 Tuxedo Black
51 Dusk (Dark) Blue
57 Fathom (Dark) Green
61 Burnished (Dark) Brown
67 Burgundy (Maroon)