Quote Originally Posted by HK1837 View Post
Again that differs between each body plant and each assembly plant. Some hung the guards, bonnet and nosecone on devices that hung the panels on the body and painted them at the same time the body was painted in the body plant. The panels then went off on overhead chain conveyers to take the panels to the assembly plant. Others painted them separately in the assembly plant. All sorts of masking equipment was used. If you pull a total factory paint car apart you will find plenty of overspray. Blacks were more often than not applied after paint like the firewall, plenum etc.

If you are doing a concours resto and the car is judged correctly you'll never win with a perfectly masked and no overspray car. For say a Pagewood assembled HZ van, you'd have to have the front panels a different shade of paint to the rest of the car. When you look closely at factory assembled engines they are painted after they are assembled, there was always red overspary all over the alloy, all bolts were painted in place, gaskets got painted and so did exhaust manifolds, bellhousings and the exposed bit on the front of flex plates that got hit when the sump got paint.
Yeah, that sounds like what I've seen. Certainly for engines. It always pissed me off that they were so sloppy with painting engines as far as overspray went, but it was a production line and what more could you expect? It's funny now how I love to see all that originality on a motor that has been sealed all that time.