[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by John V.

Well put Dick.

Have posted these before but attached are a few pix that illustrate.

The B&W photo from the Olds guys, shows the blackout spray at the Lansing Plant.

The other two show the unpainted front suspension components as the 326 engine and Super Turbine trans assembly is being dropped in a '64 Tempest build at the then brand new Fremont Plant.

The 2nd shows the Tempest at the Body Drop on the Final Line, now the upper A-arms all shiny black.

You can bet the blackout treatment at Fremont was done pretty much the same as at Lansing and at every other GM Assembly Plant.

I hope my restored and painted components will look nice for many years, not begin to bleed rust in a few weeks!

I know Sonic and Dick feel the same way about their beautiful restorations. For some of the components, I think it is okay to go with what you think looks good to you rather than hoping to understand how those pieces looked when they rolled off the line.

Originally Posted by 61-63

As I recall Jim Mott did say that both the front and rear suspension were sprayed with black paint from the front on the front end components and rear on the rear end components, so rust would not be seen on those areas from the front or rear of the car after it left the assembly plant. I do not recall asking him if he did that on restored cars but do not think he does, but I vaguely remember looking down into the engine bay of one of his '65 GTO restorations at the first Dayton co-vention in '09 and
the suspension components facing toward the front of the car had been sprayed with a thin coating of black paint. I may be remembering this wrong. I'm going to post all the pictures I have and the silver looking components are painted to be bare steel which he said was the way they left the assembly plants. I don't know how many '64 and '65 GTOs he has done for people but it is quite a lot.

I supervised this operation in the truck assembly plant. Chassis black was/is a thin, watery "paint" (calling it paint is generous). The operator pretty much sprayed it in the general direction of the chassis; coverage was spotty at best.

If I paid big bucks to have a car restored, and it looked like they do when they roll off the end of the line, I would be very disappointed.

K