Underside Paint Color

[fabmandan]

I was admiring Scott's superb workmanship and I thought of this. What color is the underside supposed to be? I noticed Scott's has black on the underside and body color wheel wells. On my '62 there was black (which I assume was primer), then red, then black and in some spots undercoating. What is correct, body color or black?

Thanks

 

[tony barnhill]

Don't know about AH's but MG's were a weird Salmon color underneath (suppose it was the primer that was put all over the body) & then undercoated with body color in the wheel wells.

 

[jlaird]

Bugeyes and early Marks, Sprite and MG were same as body.

 

[Whitephrog]

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A BE body was all one color except the underside of the boot deck which remained a dark gray primer.

 

[racingenglishcars]

The internal on my boot was black. It looks factory though I'm taking Haps suggestion and doing it in light gray. That way I can see things when I crawl in there after somethng.

I expect to do the bottom in body colour but was hoping for some type of rust protection. Maybe good undercoating and body colour over that. That way B.Willis did his just won't work here.

 

[fabmandan]

I'm using Zero Rust for primer and looks like body color for paint. Now I have to decide what type of paint to use.

 

[racingenglishcars]

I assume then that "Zero Rust" is a high-content zink paint?

 

[jlaird]

Rust protection, you guys forgot. First step is a two part primer on everything, heck, you can't knock that off with a hammer.

 

[BWillis]

EPOXY primer. Thats under all of my other paints.

I didn't have a lot of luck with any undercoating and paint sticking well to it. I won't be driving in the rain anyways so I like the painted bottom look.

 

[tony barnhill]

Yep, 2-part epoxy primer all over the bodies I redo also....not long ago, I slid up under a '68 MGB GT to scrape off all the factory undercoat something you never want to do, trust me!!)...under the undercoating was just that Salmon primer & the body was its original Mineral Blue color - never painted! Don't know when if ever MG stopped painting the undersides of their cars but that one had never been painted underneath!

 

[John Moore]

On my B, I painted the bottom in epoxy primer then coated it in body color truck bed liner. I'll probably do the same with my Bugeye when the times comes. It's held up GREAT!

Here's a journal entry I wrote on the process.

https://www.mgexperience.net/journal/jmoore/359

 

[mccalebr]

...not long ago, I slid up under a '68 MGB GT to scrape off all the factory undercoat something you never want to do, trust me!!)...

Funny coincidence that you should mention this today, Tony, as I spent a portion of Tuesday morning inside the passenger side rear wheel well of the '62 Sprite getting that gunk off and priming. I had already done all the flat panels; that was easy as most were replaced with new panels. With the passenger well done now, all that remains to scrape is the driver's side wheel well...I'll probably get to that next week.
---
I had some metal to repair where some of the boot floor welds had torn out when I replaced with a new panel.

To remove the old undercoating I started with a 3/4" chisel that I put on the grinder and slightly radiused the outer corners so they wouldn't dig into the metal. First I heated a section about 6" square with a torch and then hit it with the chisel. When hot the gunk peels off pretty easily. Here's the well after the holes were repaired and the initial scraping with the chisel.

I then switched to an air grinder, first with an 80 grit disk then a medium grit fiber disk (2" size to get into the curves).

And here's the well after priming.

Ray

The SPridget Project (www.raysmg.com)

 

[jlaird]

Man, that is nice looking work.

 

[fabmandan]

Ray, it looks like you took pictures of my wheel wells. Driver side anyway, still have to do the passenger side. I did a lot of experimenting with rust control products while restoring the frame on a Cutlass. Zero Rust is the only one that hasn't rusted after 12 years.

 

[kcbugeye1275]

First, very nice work Ray. On the interior of my BE Boot it has a med brown paint, looks like a primer of sort, that I think is original. Under the car, when I removed all paint, tar, and oil from many yrs(about 5 yrs ago) I was almost convinced my car started out yellow. Now, after stripping paint to repaint this last yr, I am convinced that the BE in its life before I had it had a major incident with a newly painted road.

 

[tony barnhill]

...& in the top center of this photo you can see that Salmon primer that's put on at the factory - was there any other color over it?

 

[mccalebr]

Not from what I could tell, Tony, just accumulated road grunge and white overspray from a backyard paint job. Here's a view of the entire driver's side wheel well before I start scraping work on it. You be the judge.

Ray

 

[mccalebr]

Oh, I should mention that the origianl color of the Sprite was red...the white was a later overspray. So, some may argue that the color inside the wheel well is actually the original red body color.

Ray

 

[racingenglishcars]

Externally my rear body was orininally iris blue, and many repaints over that. But you can see that it had black primer before the salmon primer.

 

[fabmandan]

That's how mine is. Black under what I thought was red but must be salmon.