I have heard that all Dearborn built 69 Mach 1's had the underside coated in sound deadner or undercoating at the factory. My S code was built in Jan 69, is this correct as I had not read that before.
Not a Dearborn thing as the practice was similar at all plants. All Grandes and Mach I's in in 69 & 70 were to receive additional sound deadener (think the advertisements listed it as 50 lb additional)
This included sound deadener (not undercoating
applied to the floor pans from below. The ones I've seen indicate IMHO that the application was done at a later point in the line since the brake lines, fuel lines, floor pan and seat plugs were in place and coated.
The last one I looked at and took pictures of suggested three passes with the applicator wand.
- One from about the end of the transmission , down the driveline tunnel fading away at the start of the rear seat pan rise and ending before the rear end rise
- One down each side from about a foot back from the firewall on the floor pan (over the frame rail as well as floor pan) Both ran fairly straight rearward stopping at the rear edge of the floor pan where is rises up to the rear end raised section. On the drivers side it looked like the worker paused since the stuff was 1/2" thick around the brake line floor mount. This is not typical just the way it was applied on this particular car.
The overspray of both the outside passes indicated that the worker stood in the center of the car (shadows from the fuel lines were out from the center as were the shadows from the front frame rails)
Like all coatings workers could apply a little or allot depending on allot of possibilities.
As you have observed few restorers reproduce this detail since its not real pretty, covers up their nice floor pans and is not easy to reproduce well. Also there is always the concern that a judge will mistake the "Mach I" sound deadener for undercoating (a no -no
so I would suggest any owner with this detail offer a reminder to judges at the show (before the judging has started) of what it is and why you applied it.
Hopefully with some motivation, making sure the lack of this detail at shows is "rewarded" with a point deduction and help on sites like this for awareness, we can improve the situation.
Though not a Dearborn car (San Jose one I had really nice pictures of and handy) here is an example of what I tried to describe. Will look for and post a Dearborn on also.
Hope this helps
