Topic: 68 GT 350 chassis black out

[ruppstang]

On the rear chassis of our 12-2-67  1968 GT 350 it appears that it was sprayed black from the rear axel rearward. It looks very original. I have not seen this on other Mustangs.
Another curious thing I discovered that the rear brake drums were blacked out on the face. I see no reason for this as they all came with wheel covers not wheels.

[Bob Gaines]

On the rear chassis of our 12-2-67  1968 GT 350 it appears that it was sprayed black from the rear axel rearward. It looks very original. I have not seen this on other Mustangs.
Another curious thing I discovered that the rear brake drums were blacked out on the face. I see no reason for this as they all came with wheel covers not wheels.

It may be old with patina but I do not thing the black on the underside from the rear axle rearward is assemblyline original.Just my thoughts.

[J_Speegle]

Or might be a repair on the line where the floor jets switch got bumped and left bare metal there until it was repalired/recovered by hand at the engine compartment paint station.


Had a early car recently that was done that way (one color over the other applied by hand) Very very rare and odd bu things happened and someone had to do something

Other original 68 NJ cars I have pictures of have above the rear end housing are typically same color as the floors sections forward of that point


Just what I've seen

[ruppstang]

Here are some pictures of the under carriage. Also one of the black out on the brake hub face. I thought it was interesting that the axel paint was out on the brake drum too. I had another Shelby restorer tell me that they blacked out the brake drums even though they were to get wheel covers.

[Bob Gaines]

It looks like the red oxide is under the black in all of the pictures. I don't see bare metal underneath. That observation  lessens the possibility of the assembly line scenario like Jeff pointed out he had seen IMO. I can remember one of the things I did underneath when detailing my 69 mach back in 1972 was painting the underside black.  That would have plenty of patina on it by now too and may convince someone looking at it that since it was old it was automatically assemblyline .It could be just as likely a PO since it is not a more typical seldom seen anomoly. My guess is still PO.Just my opinion with no other evidence.

[TLea]

Have seen several 68 NJ cars with black in the area above rear axle and sometimes transmission tunnel. Best explanation I could ever come up with was the one like jeff suggested. At best its an anomyly and not a pattern

[J_Speegle]

...............I can remember one of the things I did underneath when detailing my 69 mach back in 1972 was painting the underside black.  That would have plenty of patina on it by now too and may convince someone looking at it that since it was old it was automatically assemblyline ...........

Oh didn't just about every kid get out the black rattle can and black out the wheelwells and if they had access to a lift the undercarriage at some point early in every cars life.

Was just offering a possibility but if it wasn't covering something that needed covering -??

Not sure why (if there is perfectly good red oxide under the black) Ford would have paid someone to apply black over this area.

Just a thought

[ruppstang]

I was beginning to think you may be right, it was just something that a PO did. Today I was under the car looking at the LH frame rail where the fuel line lays on it and there was no shadow of missing black paint then I got the old fuel line and cleaned it and found no trace of black paint. I rather doubt that the PO would removed the fuel line when he did the rattle can black out. 

[J_Speegle]

........I rather doubt that the PO would removed the fuel line when he did the rattle can black out.

No we wrapped tin foil around those things to give a little detail. Just had to remember to remove it all

Think you might be surprised the efforts some went through - hard to say never or wouldn't 

IF not then we have to figure out why Ford would pay someone extra to apply paint there when the floor jets were suppose to take care of it. Not like they were in the business of spending money without cause

[ruppstang]

I brought this thread back because my current GT 350 project (02646) has the same black out that I found on (00602). I agree there is no apparent reason for it.

[Bossbill]

Does the car show signs of shackles?
Good street cred back then required a jacked up rear, extra wide tires and the possibility of painting the now exposed rear.
I was running G70s on my 65 which required some serious lift.

[Coralsnake]

I have documented several 1968 Shelbys that have original blackout above the rear axle. Sorry I dont have the information handy, and I can not offer an explanation as to why it would need to be blacked out.

The only thing I can think of is this was a stop gap effort to cover areas that didn?t receive their initial coverage of paint.

Let me see if I can find photos

[J_Speegle]

If Pete can't locate one I'm sure I have a couple. Agree no real reason for the application except to address a problem and likely intermittent. Would be interesting, if we had enough examples, to graph out the examples to see if there was a pattern or it may just show that NJ had more issues with the spray mechanism than the other two plants.


If it was a fix, I wonder where it got caught and fixed since its done in black where examples of this I've seen at San Jose (maybe one or two cars from all the years there) were fixed with red oxide. Which was likely applied at the next paint section when they did the front frame rails. Not aware of the issue being found over and over during other years of production at NJ.

[Coralsnake]

No good pictures, but I found a list: 212, 1539, 1701 and 3206

So this seems to be throughout production

To be clear this the transition panel (hump) directly above the rear axle.

[ruppstang]

I have yet to detail clean the undercarriage of this car but the black looks to be from the hump rearward. No signs of crazy hot rod stuff, only some weird damage to the LH high arch of the frame rail. I will post some pictures of things when it is clean.