Morris Minor Owners Club

When is the best time to paint replacement wings before or after fitting?

Personally I think before as you will get to all the fiddly bits and edges such as where wing abuts door etc, which may get a coat, albeit a thinner one if painted when fitted.

The downside of course is that you REALLY have to be careful when reassembling the car.......

I would paint those areas that you will not be able to get to before fitting the wings.
Give the other areas of the wings a good coat of primer and undercoat and do the final coats after the wings have been fitted and adjusted.
If you scratch the wings when fitting and adjusting then it is not such a disaster.

Are you talking about front wings or rear wings? I would paint a rear wing off the car because it is relatively easy to fit it afterwards.
A front wing is a different animal and somewhat harder so, as Phil says, paint the hard to reach areas at least and then fit the wing before final painting. That way, you can also paint over the seal between the inner and outer wing at the same time - unless your car is very early and had a plastic piping like that fitted to the rear wings.

Whichever way you do it, Do make sure you get plenty of paint around the fixing flange - something that BMC failed to do in their hurry to assemble an inexpensive car.

It's the rear wings.
Thanks for the advice above.
Much appreciated.

Personally, I would trial fit all the outer panels before painting. You can then fettle, pull, push, and bend them in to the position that achieves the best fit for your car. You can also skim fill imperfections as required at this point. Paint them off the car and final fit when dry using tape on surrounding areas where you don't want any damage.