Firewall & rocker panel blackout:

Also the painters sprayed out the interior with a gray base-- Finally no more of that ugly green primer! We're going to go for an original-type of look with white & blue overspray over the gray base.

Subframe is a temporary loaner, it will eventually be replaced.

P.S. Is it just me or has this website been really dead lately??????

The project may be slow in your eyes but to me this baby is COOKING. I've seen a lot of restos happen and so far this ones in the top 10% for speed

Yes..as my Grandfather used to say.. Its dead as a popcorn fart

things will pickup

Your SO SMART to wait and do it right than to have regret.. Good work!

Car does look great. From experience I learned to be patient, rushing things only leaves you with regrets.

Tom/Dave thanks for the kind words; appreciate the feedback... The secret is I'm getting this work done professionally rather than trying to do stuff myself in spare time that I don't have, & overestimating skills that I don't possess either.

I gotta admit though I'm kind of puzzled by the blue paint issue. Obviously I'm not the first guy restoring one of these things so there must be some precedent considering what others have used?

Phil's color chart references the lacquer codes that were used originally-- Do most people go just with those & use lacquer? I'm under impression lacquer is very difficult to come by anymore and my painters have been working in enamels so far (base+clear). Is there a known enamel cross-reference for the Marina Blue & other colors? Or have people typically taken their best guess on color matching either by eyeball or by spectrometer-scanning original parts?

At this point my painters are planning to use the 4 Ditzler lacquer mixes I found locally to spray up some samples. They think they have an enamel match for the 2 exterior blue colors. But no success in enamel matching the 2 interior colors. At this point they are planning to do the interior with lacquers using the Ditzler formulas. Any thoughts on this (enamel exterior & lacquer interior)? To me this sounds kind of unusual but painter has many years of experience and says it can be done.

I know there's about 4 different questions here; however I would appreciate any feedback from folks that have been through this before & can provide some input. Thanks...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Charley Maule,

Hi Charley.. I really can appreciate your opinion.. If I were you I would be thinking the same thing "How can all you guys have the same cars and NOT have a simple flow chart made of the right colors and paint to use ? " I get it brother and agree but right now thats true

Let me make a few excuses... The vast majority of guys have their cars painted and never bother to ask.. Most of these cars are wrong anyway with either the dash top or the gloss use or even the shade.. Many have it very close and acceptable but never got the down low from the painter.. Others like myself have had good solid success but have one excuse or another for why they cannot pass the info on..

Let me tell you mine

I still have an unrestored Pacecar to work on so that car has afforded me no experience.. My finished car had a perfectly acceptable dash top that I kep original.. I used the spray cans of bright blue on some interior plastic parts with good success.. That is the commonly available color that matches the actual upholstry

With regards to the kick panels I came close with using 69 interior color dark blue.. Its wrong but not so far off

With the painted areas to metal and dash-steering column parts

Door tops
Dash face
Steering wheel
Steering column
Steering column covers
etc

I have a paint formula mixed that worked great.. I had two cans mixed ( 2 pints ) and the first one ran out after I did the dash and door parts.. I opened the second pint and it was mixed wrong and I did not know that.. it made a miscolored mess that sucked to redo.. I had a third pint made and had to blanket the parts again.. ultimately it was a very close color and gloss match that I am proud of.. BUT the cans got confused etc and I am reluctant to recommend..

I know that guys can help we just gotta get them to respond and then I have to get off my butt and get a chart going..

You of course have made great improvements with the pin striping!

Show this picture to your painter and see if the lable makes sense to him! I took this pic to remember what paint I painted the wheel with which is all the dash color as well

Here is the number on the lable better and the white I used

I labled this picture Kevin K's kicks so this may be a good kick panel color because kevein is VERY GOOD at restoring

This is what I used on my kick panels.. it is not right but its better than painting them the color of the upholstry which is very wrong

I need time to think what this is.. Maybe you can show it to your painted and have him mix a pint

I know this is premature but I'm hoping your going to be the guy to finally furnish us a full CHEAT SHEET of the right colors to paint your car...

Visited paint shop today. They have sprayed up samples of the different blues for me to check out...

The current thinking on planned approach is:

1) Exterior nose stripes in enamel with Marina Blue (ChromaBase #4850K);
2) Pinstripes also based on the Marina Blue enamel; but tinted a little lighter such that the mix more closely resembles the Ditzler #13402 (Dupont #9331-LH);
3) Interior-- No enamel cross identified so use lacquers, Ditzler #13217 for dash top and #13379 for the rest of the interior. (Tom- your #4704J pictured above- is that an enamel?)

Tom, I think your mystery paint from previous post is the Marina Blue ChromaBase #4850K... looks like my guys got the same stuff!

As far as the kick panels are concerned; I am fortunate enough to have these already molded in dark blue from my 732-Z donor car, so thankfully I shouldn't need to go through that aspect.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Charley Maule,

Interior lacquers #13379 & #13217...

Phil had rightly pointed out the formula was revised in 2000. We are thinking that the changes probably involve something non-substantive i.e. not affecting the color, for instance maybe updating tint codes that may have changed sometime post-1967. I really don't know exactly what changed, we're just speculating...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Charley Maule,