poll; body color under car or chassis black?

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I used to like the body-colored look, but now I am leaning towards updated original. Most cars were dipped, and had a dark grey primer on the underside (LA often black). Undercoating depends on package. Any overspray on the bottom was simply from painting the lower rockers, quarters, tail pans etc

I am now leaning to the use of a base/satin clear dark grey finish to simulate the original look after prep, and overspray as it happens when spraying the lower body areas with finish color.

Grant
 
mopardude318 said:
body color looks very neat, but i do imagine it not being very durable? wouldn't undercoating provide more durability?
Click to expand...

After spending two weekends scraping under coating with a heat gun I dont know if I could bring myself to undercoat it again, although it probably makes the most sense. Undercoating probably saved the car from rusting to the ground, But it was also hiding rust as well.
 
If I ever get in this situtation I amgoing to go body color. I plan on a white car so white underbody. My reason is that lighter colors reflect light, and working under a car that will reflect a drop light makes it a little easier to see.
 
I say body color. I did my 72 Dart like that, and I'll be doing that to my newest project, a 73 Dart Sport 340. On my Dart, I scraped/sanded/etc so the bottom was perfect, then I used POR15. I primed/painted it body color, and I just used acrylic enamel with a little extra hardener. It wouldn't chip, etc, looked awesome, after 12 years showed no signs of rust or wear (granted, I probably only put 10K miles on it, but it sat outside for about 6 years.) I went thru 3 transmissions, drag racing, etc and I barely ever sprayed it off. Well, when the time came to finally clean it (it was F3, light green, and the gunk had made it almost black) I sprayed diluted purple clean degreaser on it, left it sit, took a soft brush and water to it, and it was like new! I'm going to follow the same formula for the Dart Sport. So, to answer your questions, it wasn't any harder to keep clean, and it was extremely durable. And...it adds to the wow factor of your car (Holy **** that thing is clean underneath), you don't get all dirty when you are underneath it, its easier to find any problems, and it, in my opinion, makes it more valuable and sellable. The ONLY thing I didn't like was going thru mud, etc, it sounded like someone throwing rocks at the wheel wells. To solve that, I'm gonna undercoat the wheelwells and any spot that gets hit by debris. Here is a pic of the car before I sold it, after just wiping it off. The paint underneath is 10+ years old.

under3-1.jpg
 
metalidart
Thats the kind of story I was hoping to hear. Longevity. I am leaning more and more to body color, Lizard skin in the wheel wells also body color
 
My challenger is my show car and is perfect.
I painted the underside in gloss black so it would be easy to clean yet still be forgiving in those hard to get at areas.
Yes,I do clean it underneath and yes,I do drive it but not much.
I get really p!ssed off when I get caught out in the rain with it because it's not a pleasant job cleaning underneath.

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