restoring underbody

[davidseymour]

i am restoring my 49 mm and have gone completey crackers,turned it on its side and am painting underneath,hopefully to a good as new condition.
does anyone know what the colour should be underneath on a 49 car,car is romain green but i can find absolutely no trace of green paint on floorpan,it is completely untouched before from what i can see and it appears to have been painted black.
i know it is usual for later minors to be painted body colour if the underneath is good enough but i do not want to vary from the original.
is there anybody out there even sadder than i am that might know.
thankyou very much
david seymour
wilsden
west yorkshire

[Cam]

Hi David,

I'm not too sure about that, but I have seen concours cars with the underside painted body colour, the torsion bars silver and everything else painted black.

Having said that, the first Minor (NWL 576) is painted black underneath...

I would hazard a guess to black then, especially as you can't find any trace of green underneath.

Bill Hewlett will know for certain. He's the chief concours judge and his contact details are in Minor Matters magazine. He's also on here under the name of 'Judge'.

[andrewstone]

David,

I have a 1950 tourer in bits which is an export model and the underside is painted black, except the inner wings which are body colour.

Hope this helps
Andrew

[Scott]

Likewise, mine was black with underseal underneath with no sign of body colour when completely stripped down.

[Veitchy]

I went and had a look at mine, the 50 model is an orignally black car so black underneath and behind the guards. But the 49 model was originaly "maroon" and it has body colour under the black paint behind the guards. All black on the underside of the floorpan, with no sign of colour "anywhere" on the floorpan. It looks like the factory painted the whole body shell including firewall and wheelwells behind the guards down as far as the lower edge of the body where it joins the floorpan in body colour, painted the floorpan and suspension black and then painted the black behind the guards after assembly.

I think this is a UK built car and as we are RHD out here I doubt there was any difference in specs for export, I think it would be the same as they would have built for the home market.

Graham

[Scott]

There were some "minor" differences.
A couple that come to mind are:
UK had an air silencer instead of a filter & only 1 wiper for the early cars.

[Veitchy]

Umm well,
Definitly 2 wipers and one very nice oil bath aircleaner so it looks like some spec's are different.
I recon the paint would be the same though.

Graham

[Judge]

Likewise, mine was black

Interesting. As far as I was aware, all car undersides (excluding LCV's) were body colour. It seems to make no sense to paint them black, when the body was sprayed as a complete unit. However I did not join KD until the 60's, so perhaps there was a variation on export models before this time.

Anyone else out there with an export car that can throw light on this subject?

Bill.

[Veitchy]

I am definatly a "newby" at minors, but I had another closer look at the 49 car. The black paint behind the guards may have been painted on when the colour was changed from maroon to blue (well after it was built) but there are quite a few spots underneath on the floorpan and they are only "black", there is no sign of the original maroon body colour anywhere on the floorpan.

Goodluck, I hope someone can give you a definitive answer on the UK cars.


Graham

[andrewstone]

David,

I removed the front Grill and O/S front wing this weekend, which confirmed that the body shell including firewall and wheelwells behind the guards down as far as the lower edge of the body where it joins the floorpan were painted in body colour. The floorpan and suspension black and then painted the black behind the guards after assembly. The jacjing point is black and the bolts holding on the wings are body colour not chrome finish.

Andrew