Painting under the floor pan.

[Steve Marshall]

Mission creep - to think I started just wanted something MOT-able and reliable.

I now need to have a bare metal respray as the historic crappy resprays have microblisteringjavascript:emoticon(':(').

As the engine, gearbox and rear axle are already out, I could have the underbody stripped and sprayed reasonable easily. I have seen E-Type restores in the mags with floor pans you can see your face in, but I imagine they left the factory with underseal/chip guard in 1969.

Is this correct, and at risk of starting a flame war, is painting the underbody considered to be over restoration?

[MarkE]

It is by me!!
And so is powder-coating and two pack high gloss black on things like radiators and servos which were, at best, a dull satin finish. But I'm an old fashioned bloke who remembers these cars when they were new.

Painting them underneath makes them look like a 1:1 scale model to me, and as they were undersealed at the factory from new, that's a nice easy thing to get right, if you're after an authentic finish.

As you say though, I'm sure others will have a different view!

[D COUPE]

I will second that.

If when it rains you think about all the cleaning you will have to do.

Or

I have to use the crappy wipers again.

I believe you should build to drive

DC

[abowie]

Why wouldn't you?

Get them to scrape 50 years of crap off the underside of the car, fix anything nasty they find, put new underseal back on and paint it. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not worth restoring it properly.

You haven't mentioned whether you intend to do the firewall and engine frames too but you should. The improvement that alone made to my FHC was probably the best money I have spent on the cosmetic side of that car.