Color inside rear wheel wells on a 68 Shelby

[Corey Bowcutt]

Were the insides of the rear wheel wells blacked out, left red oxide or painted body color?  I have looked on Thecoralsnake.com and read the paint section several times.  The photos show the red oxide with body paint overspray but do not have the blacked out pinch weld yet.  So I am not sure if they were blacked out the same time as the pinch welds or simply left red oxide with body color overspray.

Thank you,

Corey

[Coralsnake]

I think this has been a topic of debate for a long time. They seem to have come both ways. Its hard to find unmolested examples.

[gt350shelb]

mine do not appear to be blacked out   but  mine is weird

[Rukiddin]

I just can't bring myself to spray undercoating over all my hard work making it nice......same with front........what is acceptable at shows? Not that I will be in many,but would not want to be told " I wish you didn't spray that undercoating in the wheel wells" 

[Coralsnake]

The front got very little, none on most cars

[Corey Bowcutt]

I have no intention of spraying undercoat.  I just was not sure if it should be left Red Oxide or if they sprayed black paint at the same time that they blacked out the pinch welds.  But it sounds like my best bet it to leave it Red Oxide.

Thanks guys.

Corey

[Coralsnake]

Not sprsyed black

Either body color over deadner or

Deadner over body color

[Bob Gaines]

I have no intention of spraying undercoat.  I just was not sure if it should be left Red Oxide or if they sprayed black paint at the same time that they blacked out the pinch welds.  But it sounds like my best bet it to leave it Red Oxide.

Thanks guys.

Corey

I would not leave it completely red oxide . But that is just me.  Make sure there was some body color under there in the right places if you want it to look more like factory. A large amount of the Red oxide that was visible would have gotten body color overspray in the process of painting the rear wheel well lip. Think about that process and how wide a spray pattern the gun would be spraying doing the outside and then how much paint was being blown out of the spray gun on everything else under the wheel well while trying to get complete coverage of body color on the 1 inch lip of the wheel well.

[J_Speegle]

Agree with others that sound deadener in the rear wheel wells was standard practice on all production Mustangs and Shelby's. So if your restoring the car you have little choice IMHO. The exterior paint when applied to the fender lip (right at the edge of the wheel well opening) and as the painter passed the gun (flowing) over the wheel well opening had to go somewhere and the only logical place was into the wheel well. They didn't masked off this area.

I haven't yet found a car with factory sound deadener that had body color under (after hand stripping ) sound deadener but would love to see one if someone has one. Many of us added undercoating over factory sound deadener to repair or freshen up the look back in the 70s - 80s or even painted over with black paint.  Plan on working on a guide (like the other years already done) this spring to show details of this and other related details

[Corey Bowcutt]

So what I am gathering from your replies is it was standard operating procedure to apply sound deadener/undercoating to the inside of the rear wheel wells.  Most likely this was completed before body color was applied so there is overspray on this undercoating.  I did not know undercoating was applied by Ford.  I thought it was a dealer option back in the day but I guess that was just the undercarriage that was sprayed by the dealer at the customers request?

I really dislike undercoating and as others mentioned, after spending so much time cleaning up these wheel wells it really hate to shoot it with undercoating.

[carlite65]

respectfully i believe you are confusing the two terms. sound deadner is factory applied then covered with body color. undercoating is a slightly different product that is applied at the dealer level. if you want to be factory correct then do as jeff suggested. your car-your choice.

[silverton_ford]

So what I am gathering from your replies is it was standard operating procedure to apply sound deadener/undercoating to the inside of the rear wheel wells.  Most likely this was completed before body color was applied so there is overspray on this undercoating.  I did not know undercoating was applied by Ford.  I thought it was a dealer option back in the day but I guess that was just the undercarriage that was sprayed by the dealer at the customers request?

I really dislike undercoating and as others mentioned, after spending so much time cleaning up these wheel wells it really hate to shoot it with undercoating.

Corey,

Check out this site:  http://concoursmustang.com/speegle/Articles/Article%20-%20Sound%20Dead%20-%20Sludge.pdf

and this one for other 1968 details:   http://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=5720.0

You may have to sign up on the Concours Mustang forum for those links to work. 

I hope this helps.

[J_Speegle]

I really dislike undercoating and as others mentioned, after spending so much time cleaning up these wheel wells it really hate to shoot it with undercoating.

Restoring is not about being pretty and perfect IMHO    If possible its often the best choice to leave the original sound deadener and then just repair or touch up what was there.

Guess your really going to have issues (as so many do) when it comes to spraying all the goopy sealant on the firewall and attached pieces 

Good luck with your choices - you get to choose but then be happy with those choices and any related outcome

[Corey Bowcutt]

A lot of great information shared on this thread for me.  I so appreciate all of the knowledge sharing that goes on in this forum.  I am a member of concoursemustang.com so was able to view the links.  Great stuff!