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What paint behind the grill?

Moparfiend

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Does anybody know what paint color was used behind the grill? I am talking about the sheet metal areas for example where the light buckets get mounted to.
 
Mine were the body color from the factory.....but many others are black
 
Agreed. Depends on the car line. Black out was done after paint, only for areas seen through grill. If the headlight bezels are solid, not much blackout behind them. Flat black.
 
Agreed. Depends on the car line. Black out was done after paint, only for areas seen through grill. If the headlight bezels are solid, not much blackout behind them. Flat black.
Totally agree other than color is not exactly flat black, I call it chassis black.
 
Semi-Flat, Satin, Eggshell....all different levels of low gloss but the only cars that I knew of that didn't get the blackout were black cars!
 
You can be the judge but mine had
Screenshot_20200710-214212.png
Screenshot_20200710-214200.png
some but very minor blackout offer the pics. All original.
 
Ok Kern, are you saying my 73 factory black car ALL was painted the gloss black body paint and did not get the low or semi gloss blackout. I m assuming lacquer paint was still being used and that blackout would have dulled fairly quick I think.....
 
I'm guessing this is for the '70 Satellite that you're doing the awesome resto on? My '70 GTX was blacked out, I don't know why your Satellite wouldn't be the same, but it's Mopar, very few things were carved in stone. I agree with Jerry Hall, basically a chassis black, the sheen is somewhere between flat and satin. Keep up the good work on that Satellite.
 
My car was repainted before I bought it and you could clearly see the body color behind the grill. I didn't like the look so I rattle canned it flat black. It looks so much nicer.
 
So this is making sense. Here is what my car looks like. Only the engine bay was repainted (not by me) and you can see some black out paint behind the light buckets.

60349AC4-180F-42DF-AC3A-C57693D9F108.jpeg
 
It does appear from the picture that yours is supposed to be blacked out. The green in that area is not a factory spray job, that was done with the headlight buckets in place, probably when the previous owner did the engine compartment repaint. As you can see from Kevin Bisgrove's pictures the factory sprayed that area without the headlight buckets in place.
 
This is something I have to do in the near future, too. I was looking at Eastwood's underhood matte black. They sell matte and semi-gloss. The purpose of the blackout was to not bring attention to what is behind the grill so I'm leaning towards the matte black.
 
Usually black. They were sprayed from underneath with chassis black which is like thinned down undercoat. Most colored cars were black. Dark blues and blacks usually not. It all depends who, if anyone, was in the pit that shift.
 
As you see from my photos it is basically the same as Moparfriend posted. Yes only the headlight bucket area was blacked out but the bottom rail as you can see also was.
 
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