Sorry missed your cars build date in your first post.... reading through too quickly this morning before taking off out the door
Again - welcome we've been getting a few Cougar owners on the site since it opened. Good to know that there is an interest in the details also
The disclaimers and warnings first As always a warning to others reading this post, the response here is focused on one plant and one time period. Please do not copy or use this information unless your building exactly the same car from the same time and plant!!!!
Don't have any other examples completed the same day as your car but have a fair number from that time period. I personally have a Boss built about 20 days after yours also.
As always it would have been best to document what was on your car originally since there is no way to be 100% sure of all the details since every car was a little different - and we're talking about things like maybe the rocker sealant was 2" shorter or longer on your car on the drivers side than typically found. But we should be able to get you in the ball park
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Have not collected and disassembled allot of Cougars so the details may vary a bit but here goes
1- Doors and Decklid installed as well as some of the seam sealers applied to the main body
No rear endcaps or rear valance installed at this point. Body sat on a frame that would support and carry it through the paint process and beyond. There were 8 mounting points with 2 additional ones (in the case of the Cougars) just in front of the rear most points. Each produced a soft edged shadow in the finished product since no paint or overspray would have traveled between the body and the round mounting surface at each of these points. This left a plated surface at each of these points in the finished car- including 2 in the interior and 2 in the trunk. Details on how some reproduce this look as further explanation is available in an article in this sites library
2- We're not sure if the body primer came before or after the floor primer but that doesn't seem to matter. Never found overspray from one area to the other to reproduce. Exterior and interior (including trunk) of the unibody primed in red oxide epoxy. Floor from the firewall rearward covered (in your case a dark gray batch color)
Batch color may have been a gray primer with allot of left over paint added typically producing a dark gray color with a blue or greenish tint. Sometimes with a noticeable amount of metal flake
3- More seam sealers and sound deadener applied. Most noticeable in a finished car would be the inner quarter panels, trunk seams and rear wheel wells
4- Light gray primer sealer applied to the exterior body with overspray traveling into the trunk and rear wheel wells. This filled minor imperfections in the body and seams. End caps may have been installed loosely prior or just after this step. Rear valance installed after this step and was attached (believe Cougars were treated the same as Mustangs here) only at the top to the taillight panel allowing it to hang down freely and some overspray wrapping around and behind for a short distance
5- Body color applied which produced overspray along the outer edges of the body including the rocker panels, direct paint application to the inner wheelwells and frame rails exposed in that area. Trunk painted also at this time with no effort taken to coat upper quarter panels, under package tray, corners or areas not easily seen.
Body color was applied into the front wheel wells typically towards the shock tower pocket. How far forward depended on the worker at the time. IMHO without any original reference from your car half way between the firewall and the shock tower is a good place for the body color to fade away on both sides of the car.
6- Engine bay blackout applied from above allowing overspray to coat any panel/suspension point that hung producing soft edges at all transitions. Around the time your car was built Dearborn was starting to apply black above the firewall to cowl pinch weld fading out half way to the windshield opening or taking the paint all the way to the opening
How far down the firewall (transition to the floor pan) black was applied depended on the height, age
and effort the painter put into it. At the same station the painter also applied black to the front cross member and radiator support the over spray from this application often coated some of the inner fender panels on both sides behind the radiator support. Some painters would apply black directly on these inner fender panels stopping, typically before the shock tower pocket
7- Pinch welds blacked out. I'm unsure if the pinchweld black out was done at the engine compartment paint section or another one following it but it was the next step. Like the body color application the overspray traveled over the floor boards from the outer edge of the rocker and quarter panels inward producing more overspray nearer the outer edge. The rocker edge produced a small shadow directly behind it along that edge. Also panels like front frame rails, convertible seat supports also received more overspray since they hung down and were directly behind where the paint was applied.
Its not unusual also to find some spray "blow out" at the ends where the spray was applied at the rear wheel wells. as the gun continued to spray for a moment at the end and beginning of a pass. The outer edge (on the rocker panel) was a soft edge - not a sharp taped edge.
8- While we're at applying paints and sealers should mention that once all of the parts, wires, tubes and such were attached or passed through the firewall each opening, and mounting point (we'll that was the plan) was sealed. The only one that was not was the screw and wire for the engine grounding strap which was attached to the engine and attached to the firewall when the engine was installed - much later in the build.
9- Individual painted panels and parts were painted off of the car with the red oxide and in some examples the light gray then body color at about the same time as the unibody was being painted. When painting these parts give consideration to the angle and application of the paint and where overspray on the back side of the part would be produced. Its best not to tape off the back sides and try to fake the overspray though most painters will try and do this. Only seems to lead to mistakes.
NOTE - One additional comment on overspray is that when these cars were painted originally the guns were high volume high pressure guns which produced allot more overspray (read distance and amount of paint) that today's spray guns. The painter will need to add 2-3 times the natural overspray produced when "normally" painting a car today to produce the original look
10- Now once you've spent all this time to reproduce all these points comes the sound deadener. If your car is an XR7 (sorry can't confirm if this was done son standard Cougars also in 69
once the car is together - minus the driveline and exhaust, you'll want to apply it to the floor boards starting at the #3 cross member and tacking the spray rearward on both sides of the floor to under the rear seats and in the center of the car typically from about 10" behind the transmission tail shaft to under the rear seat area.
Also you be applying a fair amount of sound deadener to both front wheelwells before you add the wheels and tires. You'll look to cover the firewall section in the wheelwell (with the splash shield) over the undersides of the fender, up the firewall to frame rail junction, up the rear inner fender panel to the top of the rear edge of the spring cover, down the top front edge of the spring cover, over the front inner fender panel, across the back side of the fender where the headlight would be attached and to the front splash shield and fender joint.
There are a bunch of threads covering similar questions and even 69 Dearborn specific ones I invite you to view and ask questions. As always we can skip over details and the written word does not always communicate clearly all the meanings we wish they would. I know that every time I do one of these post I see a half dozen more details I should include. One of the reasons we can only do so much through this media - always much better in person.
Because of these challenges and imperfect medium please feel free to ask questions
Hope this helps
Some related threads here
http://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=2459.msg12874#msg12874http://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg24#msg24http://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=4348.msg24136#msg24136http://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=2190.msg11344#msg11344http://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=809.msg4133#msg4133
