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Bugeye Undercoating.....Lack Thereof?

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erstearns

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Having my heart set on a clean, white, painted bottomside it occurs that there might really be some part that needs to be sealed. Given that I prefer style over substance, hence no undercoating anywhere, any suggestions? The carcass is off to be soda blasted next week, followed by epoxy prime and back to me for finish body work. Any real negative comments about a neat underside? Something I am not thinking through?
 
Paint and clear coat just like the top side.
 
I've kicked the same issue around in my mind for my '62 Sprite; here's what I plan to do. I'll paint the underside of the car with POR-15; since mine is a resto-mod and I can take liberties, I will probably use a contrasting paint (gray...to match the interior) to the body color (red). I do intend to apply a heavy coat or two of undercoat to the wheel wells...to cut down on stone dings; and, it's easy to touch up.

I think as long as you have easy and frequent (once or twice yearly) access to a lift so you can clean, inspect, and remove build ups of road grime and mud you will be fine. Pay particular attention to the rear suspension mounting points, especially spring boxes on quarter elliptic cars. My new shop will have a two post lift /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

Ray
 
Oil kept the rust bugs away on my bugeye for many yrs. Now, it has a complete coat of Por 15. Having taken care of the oil issues, I do worry that this protection is gone. But my car isn't the show stopper others make theirs to be. 4500 miles this last yr.
 
I painted the underside of the 58 I finished last year but I just could not stand the look of a white wheel well so I undercoated the bottom and wells when all was said and done.
I also just finished the green paint on the underside of the 67 I am doing. I might keep the floors green but the wheel wells will get blacked out, at least the dark green floors (so far) do not bother me as much as the while underside of the 58 bothered me.
But that's me, I just hate the look of body colored wheel wells. And a nice painted underside is only nice till you hit that first puddle but not many people look under a Sprite but everybody can see the wheel wells and they are in the same condition as soon as you hit that first puddle. Muddy!
So I use a quality rubberized undercoat when I restore these rust buckets.
I have taken many Spridgets apart, the ones with the least amount of rust had undercoating, the last one I cut up was a 69 that never was undercoated and well just take a look.
https://home.comcast.net/~spritenut/rusty6.jpg
https://home.comcast.net/~spritenut/rusty8.jpg
https://home.comcast.net/~spritenut/rusty10.jpg
if you want to see more, replce rusty6 with rusty1 thru 12
 
Watch those doors. I had my Tub Blasted by a shop who is resounded for not wrping any panels. Well I guess the guy was in a rush when he did mine cause he warped the near perfect doors pretty bad. Had I know this I would have stripped the doors my self and let him do the rest of the tub
 
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