69 Dearborn Undercarriage Finishing - A Guide

[J_Speegle]

Been asked a number of times since the new site has gotten back on its feet to repost so here it is

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Not specifically 69 Shelby's only document so read through it carefully there are some variables. Hope this helps others


This is an article I've written and rewritten a dozen times over 20 years. Found it was easier to have a prepared document when I got questions related to the subject rather than going through the whole thing every time. It proved to be a challenge as your always discovering new details, sub patterns and such along the way so it has only been share privately in the past since I never felt it was finished. Not sure anything I do is completely

Also just limiting the coverage to one area of the car was sort of difficult when you want to help and describe everything that was going on at that point at the car plant.  See allot of related requests here so thought it would be a good time to try and wrap it up then focus on some of the other years and plants. Hope some here find it useful in there related endeavors.

Will be updates as new information is discovered and accepted as well as mistakes, typos and such are found

Free storage sites can be a pain. Currently they are limiting the size of the file so had to post the article in two parts. (total over 40 megs-16 pages) Need to find a better solution long term as I have an Article that is over 55 pages I would like to share, but currently its uploaded on this NZ site. Sorry it takes a while for it to load on your computer

https://mega.nz/file/7LZnUIAA#F5F0CaB-TTLiY8hHjsDw2P9JYhKaykD5QIThv2rbIGU


For those that are also members of CMF the article is also located in the Library there with all the other articles listed by model year

Its a Big file with plenty of pictures so will take some time to load. Be patient    Takes me about 2+ minutes before its visible on a average day

Hope it helps others

Thanks for looking

[cj750]

Excellent info. Thanks for sharing!

[shelbymann1970]

Thanks Jeff. As of right now I cannot reach it-don't know if it is a work thing or not. Also I went to the CMF and didn't know this area existed.  http://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=5719.0   THANKS!  Gary

Also I don't know if you ever seen pics of my floors before I restored my vert. I also have some pics of my friend's Boss 429 Survivor car-Ed knows this car pretty good-if you ever want detailed pics of it I can provide them for you.

[J_Speegle]

Also I don't know if you ever seen pics of my floors before I restored my vert. I also have some pics of my friend's Boss 429 Survivor car-Ed knows this car pretty good-if you ever want detailed pics of it I can provide them for you.

Yes you did send me pictures of both

[johnzajc@gmail.com]

Thank you Mr. Speegle, it is because of people like you that a lot of us vividly read these articles. I have never met person as kind and willing to help. With utmost respect-John Zajc

[J_Speegle]

I am humbled by your kind words and that you took the time to express them

Thanks

[J_Speegle]

This article is absolutely must to be read 10 times to paint undercarriage-I would be in no way be able to do the job without it--one last question---I understand fenders were painted off the vehicle, after installation do they get any sound deadner  or blackout---thanks

For a Shelby the whole front end was painted as a unit off the car. Since they (the cars) were shipped from the car assembly plant  (Dearborn) without any front fenders they didn't receive factory sound deadener in the front wheel well at Dearborn and AO Smith didn't add any.

No black out to either the front or rear wheel well was done

A  few pictures of the process that were shared with me

[johnzajc@gmail.com]

Thank you very much---I hope to meet you in person @ next convention

[johnzajc@gmail.com]

One last question---since front fenders were painted separately, I understand that paint job on outside of fender will match quality on the rest of the body, how about on inside of fenders

[J_Speegle]

One last question---since front fenders were painted separately, I understand that paint job on outside of fender will match quality on the rest of the body, how about on inside of fenders

Back side would have body color in logical locations based on the angle and areas that were painted on the outer surfaces (things like wheel lip, rear edge that would face the interior when door was open)

The rest would be unfinished fender and front end material, painted fender edge plate/trim, inner mounting brackets and the black epoxy used to hold those to the fender and the panels to one another. Believe there are at least a couple of prior threads showing these areas and finish of the front wheel wells - front end surfaces. There would also be black paint and overspray from that application to the back side of the front valance for most of the production year

[johnzajc@gmail.com]

Thank you ---mission accomplished--all systems go

[cbrown]

John,  DO yourself a favor and build a stand to hold your entire frontend assy.  IF you don't you will have a hard time duplicating how factory painted the front.    I do mine now all on cart and assemble almost everything on front and then slide it on..

chris

[J_Speegle]

John,  DO yourself a favor and build a stand to hold your entire front end assy.  IF you don't you will have a hard time duplicating how factory painted the front.    I do mine now all on cart and assemble almost everything on front and then slide it on..

chris

Great suggestion Chris. When you design the rack watch for the unintended shadows some designs can produce on the bottom of the fenders
The one below is designed to attach to the fender lip like the original one shown above for that reason though we did not build in the hood lift mechanismlike the original

Here is one example

[Stubee]

Beautiful fieldcraft here. Very nice.

[shelbymann1970]

Jeff I have had this discussion before with some here on some of these processes. When were these pics taken? could the processes have been changed during the year?  When I tore my vert down for  it's first time I investigated for the grill color. At one time the grill and buckets were painted black. When the stone guard was removed both headlight buckets  had what appeared to be dark argent metallic on them where the guard overlapped the buckets. The backside of the grill appeared to have the same. I had Painter's supply color match all 3 pieces and told them I suspected dark argent. It matched. I was told it would be impossible for my car to have  that paint on the backside of my grill(used upper grill bracket area) but it did. I have torn apart many Mustangs  since 1977 and I know my car had never been taken apart. To me it would make sense to change the process of painting the body color parts together and spraying all the grill and bucket components in batches. Then assemble. The process shown here doesn't make sense for productivity nor waste of masking paper and tape. But the process shown  here is why we see  varying taped off areas by the hood tie down brackets sprayed dark argent metallic on many Shelbys. I remember 3052 had no  dark argent paint on the fenders at all unlike earlier cars I have seen and that car had all original paint under the hood. Gary