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I'm using 5 Headlight assembly's in various despair to make two good ones for a restoration. It would appear that they were very quickly painted the color of the car on the assembly line with out any primer before they were installed in the body. It looks as though they are painted " To Good" to have been installed in the car and painted and were " very poorly " done out of the car. Maybe they were painted way ahead of time and when it came time to install them they just had a bunch of them in all the colors to grab. Some of the stiffener Rods may or may not of been painted a generic ( Black ?) previous to the Headlight assembly. Anybody shine some light on all this ?
Here are some photos of a 6500 mile 1972 you can see the headlight doors and support were installed for painting but not the supporting brackets. Look at the over spray areas.
You don't say what year you are working on but in the 78/79 judging manual, they write that the headlamp bezel & fuel filler door were painted separate from the body and installed later. My friend had his 78 judged and they questioned that the bezels were painted "too good".
Those Pictures are great. It looks as though there was some sort of black primer on the Frames and then the Color of the Car on top of that. When I took mine apart there was Color Paint under the Washers and Nuts that hold the Actuators so they must of been installed after the car was painted along with the Light retaining Cups and all the Plastic Hardware. So the assembly's must of been partially assembled when it rolled threw the Paint Shop. One would think it would be much faster to install the assembly completed. The Car I'm working on is a 1969. Sure would of been interesting to see how they filled and finished the Bonding Strips on a production line in a hurry. Of coarse were painfully aware of how many failed soon after.
These are the dollies that the plant used for the body build. Notice all the bonding adhesive on them. They used a paper funnel larger but similar to a pastry funnel to apply the panel bonding material. Those would be cleaned off during the night shift to have them ready for the next day assemblies. The St. Louis plant was dirty hot and cold depending on the season. It was like this from 1954 till 1981 maybe just a little better the last few years. Also the grinding was done fast plus any adjustments that were needed. I did a plant tour at Bowling Green we watch a employee use a similar mallet on the front bumper on a new 1988 Corvette. It was in the area after final assembly called the Finesse area to make adjustments.
I tried painting my jeep with only dust masks once... HUGE mistake. had a hangover and everything from the fumes. needless to say I wore a respirator style 3m mask when painting both my vettes in the garage.
Last edited by augiedoggy; Jan 30, 2021 at 11:06 AM.
Headlight Assembly Paint
