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Radiator support blackout

Mike Szadaj

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St. Clair Shores, Mi
1968 Coronet RT. Originally triple black, now bronze. I have seen some comments about rad supports being body color on this forum. What is factory and what is opinion? Was the rad support black on every car, or body color, from the factory? Picture is as it looks today.

101312.jpg
 
Every car except black was supposed to get the blackout.
Some have said that brown and In Violet/Plum Crazy shouldn't have it but I have seen some that did.
 
Flat or matt black (radiator color), applied from the bottom up as the body was being lowered on to the k member (complete with over spray, runs, drips & errors)
 
Blacked out so that you don't see body color through the grill.
 
All colors were supposed to have the blackout except for B7 and TX9.
 
That is one of the many reasons that these cars can be difficult to restore. There are always some discrepancies from the rules.
 
1968 GTX in a similar color certainly had it from factory, like mine did when plucked from a field
over a decade ago:
DSC05061.JPG
 
How I did it on my Bee. The factory application was not so neat.

20191126_121446.jpg 20180901_080757.jpg 20180901_080801.jpg
 
The rules are simple, blackout is applied for all body colors except for the dark colors so that the body color does not show through the grill. It was applied by someone standing below the car in a pit so the over spray pattern is upwards. Note that it was applied with little care so it is not a heavy coat of paint.

As an example, on our family's 1967 Belvedere II Spring Silver Special Edition EE-1 Dark Blue Poly the blackout was applied only in the center and very lightly since the dark blue was not obvious in the shadows.
 
Thanks all. I am definitely going to do it next spring. Depending on the grill, sometimes it is not too noticeable with the hood closed, but on '68 Coronets, with the egg carton grills, it is definitely noticeable.
 
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