Topic: 68 SJ Floor pans are black ?

[Murf]

Have a 68 Cal. Special apart for a freshening and found that the bottom of the car is black and seems to have been always that color.  The bare spots left by the factory fixtures are still unpainted, and no sign of anyone  tampering with anything under the car.  The scheduled build date is April 03 at the San Jose plant.  I can find no trace of the red oxide paint on the bottom of the car thus far, the black has the expected drips on the pans.  The original seam sealer is brushed around the seat belt anchor plates as well.  Just finished stripping the engine compartment and it had the factory applied white paint under the black  even on the core support (both front and back sides) as well as the inner and outer sides of the engine bay.  Hope that someone else has a car built in this time frame that has the same bottom color.  I can send images to anyone who is willing to post them here if there is interest.  Trying to decide what to do - duplicate what i found or use the more conventional red oxide on the bottom.  Leaning toward duplicating the black but will wait and see what others have to say.  The trunk drop off areas are red oxide and there was red oxide under the front part of the engine compartment.  Odd enough for sure!  So was this typical during early April at the SJ plant?

[J_Speegle]

Have a 68 Cal. Special apart for a freshening and found that the bottom of the car is black and seems to have been always that color.  The bare spots left by the factory fixtures are still unpainted, and no sign of anyone  tampering with anything under the car.  The scheduled build date is April 03 at the San Jose plant. ............... Trying to decide what to do - duplicate what i found or use the more conventional red oxide on the bottom.  Leaning toward duplicating the black but will wait and see what others have to say.

If you send them to my email I'll post them for you

The trunk drop off areas are red oxide and there was red oxide under the front part of the engine compartment.

Since the firewall forward (front frame rails) were shot by hand we expect them to be red oxide for that plant. 

The floor was applied to the body as it passed over spray fixtures mounted below the rails the bodies were traveling on. Not sure how to explain the red oxide on the trunk drops (assuming that your not describing the floor in that area but the vertical sides of the trunk drop panel.

With that stated Yes I've seen a very dark color used on the floor pans of 68 San Jose built cars in mid spring. Have a couple of pictures and a sample cut (often do this when  I can since I can't trust digital pictures showing true colors) from one of the cars. My Calif Spec is within 500 units (just vin when assigned) guess I could check to see what finish it is ... its in storage

Odd enough for sure!  So was this typical during early April at the SJ plant?

Too bad you don't know when the car was really built since the real date could be from mid March through almost the end of April  - guessing the vin is in the 156xxx range. If you send me the vin I can figure out when it was really finished and compare that date to the other dark floor cars I have.

Typical for early April would be one of the paler red oxide versions.

John contact me and we'll see where this goes

[Murf]

Jeff, PM sent.  Have images ready to send to you.  Thanks!

[J_Speegle]

John sent me some pictures so here they are. We did have a phone call to clarify a few things and additional information was exchanged

-  Black paint came off with ease with the application of Gunk Engine Bright and even Mr Clean so not a high quality pain and or the surfaces were not prepared well for paint. Because of the cleaning not much of the black he is referring to is left in the pictures

- John recalls that the dolly mark areas were unpainted but things like floor pan plug and seat plugs were.

- Car was ordered 2-20-68, serialized on 3-21, bucked on 3-26,scheduled for build 4-04, and actually built 4-02 with a 4-03 release date.  The car was sold at retail 9- 20 with 6,973. miles 

 Theodore Robins Inc, 2060 Harbor Blvd, Costa Mesa, Ca was the ordering and selling dealer. So it appears that the car was likely ordered for a long term demo and likely used well by one of the salesmen or the dealer. I wonder if they sold the car as a used car due to the  mileage.

- John reported that the base coat on the floor section seems to have been a burgundy?  color of primer.  Very dark possible black with a bit of red or purple, almost black. Its visible in the pictures and does appear that its a very dark red to purple version - but very dark. Front frame rails (as expected) show a different red oxide version .. much lighter on this car.

- Car has allot of overspray from the exterior paint job - IMHO not unusual and white does show up really well in these cases. He also reported that the white extended forward to the radiator support - unusual for San Jose (not unseen before just  nor normal) Guessing that it was a fill in or new person that did much more than the norm


So John is looking for input from any other owners or cars from the same period

These are pictures out of the collection that show allot of the details being discussed

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Thanks for sharing John

[Oz390]

Not too conclusive but a few shots I took on purchase of my GT/CS, April 29 build date.... underside appears blackish and I am fairly certain it was never repainted on the underside...

The exterior has been repainted, looks like a quickie tape-and-spray-the-visible-stuff... so the amount of overspray on the underside is hard to judge if factory or after that fact.  Hints of the original pinch weld blackout thru fading paint.

If it is of interest I can probably get it into the shop and up on a lift and take a closer look and some more photos next weekend.

[J_Speegle]

Considering that (reported by John) that the black was a cheap ;roduct(came off with light cleaner) and was over the original coating, the large amount of mileage put on the car and that the rear wheelwells were done also I would currently think that the black was added at the deaership in an effort to "clean up/detail " the car before it was put up for sale after someone at the dealership was done using the car.

Only odd thing was the report that the dolly mark area did not have the black but maybe the center four happened to be where the lift arms were located and placed during the application.


Just one view of the report and verbal evidence