Topic: 1970 Headlight Bucket Blackout Metuchen

[alanmac]

Looking thru previous treads on this subject revealed that my headlight buckets don't have any blackout on the front or rear.  It seems like there are alot of variations in the area painted black.  I haven't seem any specific Metuchen head light buck blackout pictures either.  Has anyone painted the blackout areas without a complete disassembly from the fender?  I was thinking its possiable to paint the visable area in the back by removing the grill assembly and masking everything off.  Subsequently it seems possible to remove the trim and headlight to paint the inside. Cut pop cartons to fit betweeen the bucket and the fender flange.  I have a rattle can of Krylon K013A07 Semi Flat Black paint.  Any thoughts on the 1613 match to the original paint?  Any information or thoughts are appreciated.  Happy Holidays!   Alan     

[J_Speegle]

Yes it appears that there has not been a request of focus on 70 NJ headlight buckets like has been done for the other two plants. Will get on it and try and post some unrestored examples for you and others.

As for using the Krylon it should replicate the original paint fairly well as far as looks. Just need a semi-gloss black (on the low side of gloss) for the purpose. Applying it to the headlight buckets bolted on the car will likely be a challenge. Make sure everything is clean before you mask off the other surfaces and you might consider using tin foil for some of the areas that need masking since it bonds and shapes itself to the little corners and surface so much better than paper. Don't want any unexpected shadows in some areas where there shouldn't be 

Now to look for some pictures

[alanmac]

Jeff, Great! Metuchen pictures will be helpful.  Good advice with the aluminium foil...

[J_Speegle]

Just as a progress report have not found an example yet with the black out as we've found on Mustangs built at the other two plants. Might be the reason I didn't post a thread earlier when I did the others but will continue looking through the pictures to be sure I look at them all.

Of course did find restored examples but you know how hard it is to take those at face value. A number of them had Dearborn details applied during the restoration

[J_Speegle]

Well went through all my pictures showing unrestored 1970 Metchen built Mustangs & Boss 302's and found none that had black out paint on the inner surfaces behind the grill as we have seen on Dearborn and San Jose cars.  Some of the examples below







In additon to these ten cars there are maybe another dozen I have


What I can't address is if the face of the headlight bucket where the headlight was located was blacked out around it. It was difficult to find any pictures of an angle that allowed me to see if this area and the two "wings" mounts on the inner area behind the grill that faces forward.

In the example below of an original paint car appears to show body color in those sections of the headlight buckets that attach to the grill. The same surfaces appear to be visible in body color in the picture above of the blue Mustang

[alanmac]

Wow, no blackout.  Glad I didn't do it.  Thanks Jeff, this is great information to document.  Much appreciated.