Following is a picture of the paint behind my grille. I know that it is supposed to be blacked out with flat black paint. Does anybody have a picture of exactly what is blacked out on an original 69 Dart. I suppose the 67 and 68 Dart would be the same.
No precision was used in this process at all. You could look at 30 different core supports and all will be different. Basically, you want black from headlight to headlight in the area behind the grill including the latch support and lower core support. If you mask for over-spray and your black has nice sharp edges from the tape lines.... You did it wrong for a factory appearance.
This ^^^^^^^^ There's no way to "know" anything because some were blacked out and some remained body color.
I agree with the others.. there was no specific pattern or anything like that.. In my case I blacked out just what was visible through the grille...
View attachment March27,20141974duster 001.jpg I know its not a Dart. It's my '74 Duster....don't pay any attention to the front bumper and grille support stuff, I am converting it over to look like a '72. It should give you an idea. The top of the rad support, the rectangle area was painted, black, by me. So the well defined borders that you see in the small area at the top of the rad support is not stock....the rest is. I read that black and dark blue cars were not supposed to receive the grille black out treatment. My 1970 Duster does not have the grille black out treatment. It's B7...a darker blue. So someone at the factory followed protocol!..
The extreme dark colors often didn't get sprayed but the rest usually did. They were sprayed with a sprayer wand that resembles a pump up weed sprayer. Nothing high tech there. I think they look best painted. This one needs it: tmm
So does that bracket in the center that holds down the hood, remain body color and therefore is not blacked out on an original 69 Dart?
It depends on what the assembly line worker felt like doing on any particular day, but generally it should also be blacked out on the grille side.
Here is my 68. You can see that the center support was originally black. The black paint directly behind the grill(and below the bumper) has been blasted away from years of road debris. Every car will be slightly different but you can get a general feel for what should be blacked out by looking at multiple examples.
Thanks to everybody for the input. I'm going to use matte black on everything that shows thru the grille.
