E-Bodies.org Cuda Challenger Forum

Technical Shop => Body Shop => Topic started by: fireguyfire on February 08, 2020, 08:13:35 PM

Title: Front panel colour
Post by: fireguyfire on February 08, 2020, 08:13:35 PM
The fibreglass front nose panel on my 73 challenger (that the headlight buckets mount to) was blacked out in the early 80's.
I'm in the process of putting the car back into factory paint, and am going to strip the black panel.
The front is obviously black (with factory red underneath) but the rest of the panel is just bare grey fibreglass.

I'm not 100% sure it's the factory panel for my car, so I'm curious if just the front of these panels were painted body colour, and the rest was left bare, or was the entire panel painted body colour at the factory?
Title: Re: Front panel colour
Post by: fireguyfire on February 08, 2020, 08:30:07 PM
Sorry; I should clarify that on my panel the front where the headlight buckets mount, and the top where the hood latch mounts have been blacked out; the rest is unpainted.
Title: Re: Front panel colour
Post by: fireguyfire on June 17, 2020, 02:17:45 PM
Thought I would refresh this thread as I am about to paint my fibreglass headlight panel.
Would the whole thing have been painted body colour at the factory?
I'm guessing the other option if it was already installed on the car before painting is that the top and front would have been painted and the rest wouldn't have?
Title: Re: Front panel colour
Post by: anlauto on June 17, 2020, 02:28:02 PM
Good question for Darren, our 72-74 resident expert...how about it @Burdar (https://forum.e-bodies.org/mlist/burdar_173) ? Any insight ?
Title: Re: Front panel colour
Post by: Burdar on June 17, 2020, 03:24:30 PM
Since all the fasteners and brackets that mount the header panel to the fenders and the hood latch support are body color, that leads me to believe it was installed before paint.  I'm not sure when it was installed but it was in place before final body color was sprayed.  My header panel had red oxide primer showing though in several spots.  Maybe someone has original pictures of what the leading edge of the fenders look like with the header panel removed?  In any case, it should be painted body color on the visible areas.  The hidden areas would have gotten some overspray of different layers of primer and body color.

(https://i.postimg.cc/dVBqwrYC/paint5.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)
Title: Re: Front panel colour
Post by: fireguyfire on June 17, 2020, 03:38:23 PM
 That is what I suspected, but wanted to confirm.
Thanks Burdar!