Topic: Factory Painting Techniques

[Kendal Coker]

Here is the build sheet and buck tag.

Factory Special Paint SVO 1984 Code 5C

[chalkys_explorer]

 Hi All,
         jusy curious about this a little and have a few questions. I'm wondering how the Fox Mustangs, and especially the SVO's were painted. From what I know it was a single stage enamel paint. I've pulled a few of these apart over the years and have noticed a few things that I'm wondering if some of you can confirm or deny.

 It appears as though the sheet-metal was e-coated, basically assembled and then painted. By this, I mean the fenders, hood, doors and hatch were in place at the time of painting. Evidence of this is the rust that is usually found under the door hinges on the A-pillar, the hood hinges on the cowl and between the hatch hinges and the roof. If you remove the front inner fender you can usually find a mix of body colour overspray and e-coat and the top fender bolts are usually body colour.

 Another observation is that the trim colour on the doors and main body was painted before the body colour. I believe this because there is usually some very mild body colour overspray where the paint line is on the doors and B-pillar.

 I'm not sure how the undersides of the cars were painted because I've never photographed a low mileage car that didn't have  some form of undercoating.

 If anyone has any more ideas, info or especially pics of cars or cars on the line, I'd love to see them.

[svo2scj]

I think you are correct in what you listed.

As for UNDERSIDE -these are from the "7 Mile" SVO !   I'm not a good photographer - but I think you can see the amount of paint on the underside ! (contrast to trolley peg holes and rubber seal)





It's kind of too bad that I didn't keep this car -as I probably would have resisted the effort to paint the underside.  (It was clean -other than just driven on a dirt road)


Mark
P.S Don't have any photos but I do remember the paint under the back bumper (lower trunk floor) being sparse.   I had to drop the tank (to drain) mostly light gray (e-coat?) under the middle.

[bluemax]

Interesting topic...I had always just assumed that the fenders, doors, hatch and hood were painted off the car. However, that would explain why I see gray primer under the lip of the front fenders along the engine bay inner fender. The fender was replaced (accident) and obviously the lip didn't quite match the original.

As for the underside, I have quite a few pics of the underside of Daniel Carpenter's low mile '85 1/2 CP. Grey primer with body color (1C) on the floor pans k-member, etc.

I know the hood support rod was painted in the "down" position on the front radiator support. Every original car that I have inspected, has shown some signs of this.

[chalkys_explorer]

 Bluemax, if you have good shots of the underside of the car, please post them.

[roadrunner]

From what I have observed with the fox bodies I have owned as well as the ones I have judged over the years, the underside was painted with gray Epoxy based primer with whatever overspray of body color hit the underside as it went thru the paint line. All Mustangs were painted with acrylic enamel top coat until the 90 feature car. It had a base clear paint. In 91 most, but not all colors were base clear.

[8T6 SVO]

Underside of a low mile 1986 SVO.

[8T6 SVO]

Another - same car

[chalkys_explorer]

 Greg, nice pics. Thanks for posting them.

[chalkys_explorer]

 here's a couple of pics i found that may show what Mark was trying to show. Looks like the hole in the floor was where the car sat on the assembly line "dolly". Also nicely shows the factory overspray pattern.

[Kendal Coker]

Those are some really good pics.