inside of body panels?

[wangdango]

Just started removing the paint from my BJ8, car was originally red, now BRG, and will go to BRG again. Car is a driver and I am not going crazy with this paint as someday I hope to do a body off/frame off. But, I would like to know what how the car was on the inside of the body panels when it left the factory. Looks like (not much paint is left) the front shroud was black not primed and topcoated red....... Anyone.......?
thanks
Ed

 

[elrey]

At the factory the entire car was painted the body color with the boot lid and bonnet raised and the doors open. Whatever could not be sprayed behind the panels was left in primer. Most folks today paint the entire chassis and the underside of the panels in the body color.

 

[Rob Glasgow]

Wangdango, Do yourself a favor and remove the fenders before you repaint. It's not that difficult and you can at least clean the back side of the fenders and maybe even prep and apply a coat of paint. You can also see it there is any rust issues that need to be addressed. I'm guessing you can remove all four fenders in less than 8 hours. You will be happy you did.

 

[wangdango]

THank you Rob,
Do you know the color of the primer? Like I said, it seems to be either black or a dark grey on my BJ8, but thats just my take from looking at it while it is still attached to the body supports....

 

[tahoe healey]

Are you sure it is primer you are looking at? It would not have been wise to leave primer exposed as it absorbs water and will cause rust. It is probably painted over with abase paint before the finish paint was applied. But I could be wrong and it is primer on your car.

 

[wangdango]

Well, I am only talking about the front shroud, and that does seem to have only one coat of paint. There is very little of this paint left after 45 years.

 

[Rob Glasgow]

Wandango, I speak from experience. I repainted my car in 1982 and did not remove the fenders. Just stripped the exterior down to bare metal, primed and repainted. About five years ago, I started to have rust bubbles show up at the bottom of the front fenders in front of the door. I think if I had removed the fenders and painted the interior of the fenders, it would have eliminated the rust. I am about to begin a complete restoration so I will finally get it right. Just wish I had at least looked at the back of the fenders when I painted it 30 years ago. The rest of the paint work still looks great, although I do have some dings and scratches but that is all part of using the car. Good luck with your repaint.

 

[TimK]

I had my car done in 1981 with all the steel body panels removed, but not the aluminum. It still looks like new 30 years later.

 

[wangdango]

Not to worry, the fenders are off!

 

[57_BN4]

A lot of pics I have seen of semi-stripped cars show the factory didn't put any paint at all on a lot of the parts that aren't seen. What they did paint probably got little or no prep and a quick squirt with a dark brown or black primer. My BN4 got a very dark brown primer and I have had a modern industrial single-stage 2K primer/topcoat matched to the original brown. I intend to primer the chassis in this all over and then paint the topcoat as the original was done- IE just the visible bits and no more.

There are some pics of cars taken apart in this thread

Re the comment about primers absorbing moisture- this is only true for old lacquer type primers according to the guy supplying my paint. He says most types of modern 2k epoxy or urethane are ok left without a topcoat although the epoxy isn't very UV stable so will degrade with sunlight.

Andy.

 

[bob hughes]

I will be using an epoxy mastic as an undercoat, next time I spray, you can get it over this side of the pond in either black or red the last time I looked, -



Bob