Looking for ideas to keep overspray of of restored chassis

[Greg L.]

I'm sure some of you will be thinking "man this guy still doesn't have his car painted" (Chuck....be nice!)...

Anyways to make a long story short I'll be taking my car for paint in a couple weeks but the problem is that the body is now sitting on a fully restored chassis and the engine compartment is also finished. Ya I know this may be a a$$backwards way of doing it but I had about a year of down time waiting for paint and wanted to at least get somethings done in the mean time(plus I had to have it running and stopping before taking it for paint).

I'd like to be able to "seal" the hood to fender gap with something and then mask around the perimeter of the frame and that should for the most part keep it all out. Also it will be lacquer so I hope that by the time any overspray that may get through settles that it will just be dust anyways. I was also thinking of spraying some kind of oily coating on the frame and chasis so that if any overspray got through it could then just be wiped off.

Basicaly what I'd like is any ideas to help keep the overspray from painting the body off of and out of my engine compartment.

Thanks

[Larry S.]

Re: Looking for ideas to keep overspray of of restored chassis

Bear in mind that I've never done a body-off on a Corvette, but I have done it on other cars. I put a large sheet of plastic (Visqueen) over the entire frame and engine and than set the body on. After painting it's not too much trouble to remove it; the only thing holding it is the body-to-frame mounts.

I realize this is a little late for you unless you want to lift the body again. Otherwise there's going to be a lot of masking and taping to do.

[Greg L.]

Re: Looking for ideas to keep overspray of of restored chassis

That was how I did it when I first put the body on a couple years ago. Since then I had to remove the plastic to get the car running and stopping so I'm back at square one I guess.

[David C.]

Re: Looking for ideas to keep overspray of of restored chassis

I wouldn't introduce oil into the equation anywhere.

[Tony S.]

Re: Looking for ideas to keep overspray of of restored chassis

Wouldn't it be easier to remove the body again and have the body painted on your body dolly?

Tony

[Michael G.]

Re: Looking for ideas to keep overspray of of restored chassis

Haven't seen anyone mention paint booth. My recent resto's all have been shot in a high-end down draft booth. With little or no time for "paint float" due to air movement you get virtually no over spray on work underneath. All areas wrapped: hood opening, grille, wheel openings and skirt dropped down from the frame. To help myself prior paint job jamb the door openings, back side of deck lid, underneath and front side of doors, headlight openings, then set headlight buckets.

[Alan S.]

Re: Looking for ideas to keep overspray of of restored chassis

Hi Greg,
Here are a few pictures of how I treated my 71 when it came time to finish the bodywork and paint.
I used rolls of plastic in a couple different widths on the chassis and as you see a large sheet loosely draped over it as the body came down. I took a good bit of time doing the wrap and the result was about 98% completely clean. I took the time to finish wrapping the 'moving 'parts of the running gear after the car was pushed into the paint room.
I found I had to be quite careful taking the plastic off so the dust/spray on the plastic didn't transfer to the chassis.
Good Luck!
Regards,
Alan

[Bill M.]

Re: Looking for ideas to keep overspray of of restored chassis

I'd like to be able to "seal" the hood to fender gap with something and then mask around the perimeter of the frame and that should for the most part keep it all out. Also it will be lacquer so I hope that by the time any overspray that may get through settles that it will just be dust anyways. I was also thinking of spraying some kind of oily coating on the frame and chasis so that if any overspray got through it could then just be wiped off.

Basicaly what I'd like is any ideas to help keep the overspray from painting the body off of and out of my engine compartment.

Thanks

Greg:

Here's a picture of my '65 before I shot it in lacquer. I masked all areas that would be hit directly by the topcoat, including a skirt, but didn't try to seal the openings with a filler. No problems with overspray for me. I was using a 1 horse air cap on the spray gun, so the flow of paint wasn't real wet.

[Greg L.]

Re: Looking for ideas to keep overspray of of restored chassis

Thanks again guys.

Pulling the body would seem to be the best route but is not practical for me at this point because the car is being trailered about 12 hours to have the paint done and it needs to be running and driving when it gets there. Plus I'd still need some way to protect the engine compartment and firewall and wraping the chassis would only protect the engine and chassis.

Someone mentioned a "curtain" around the perimeter of the frame so that sounds like something I'll try and set up and then try and figure out how to "loosely" wrap the moving parts of the chassis like Alan did.

Bill I find it interesting that you didn't seal your gaps. Is this because not enough lacquer gets past them to be an issue or did you do your jambs and and engine bay afterwards? My jambs and engine bay are done and my plan was to mask them off but maybe because airbourne lacquer overspray turns to dust so quickly that I don't need to worry about this?

[Bill M.]

Re: Looking for ideas to keep overspray of of restored chassis

Bill I find it interesting that you didn't seal your gaps. Is this because not enough lacquer gets past them to be an issue or did you do your jambs and and engine bay afterwards? My jambs and engine bay are done and my plan was to mask them off but maybe because airbourne lacquer overspray turns to dust so quickly that I don't need to worry about this?

Greg:

My jambs were done before I shot the body. I masked the edges of the doors, the door jambs, the edges of the hood, the entire hood surround, the edges of the decklid, the entire decklid surround, the edges of the headlight buckets, the edges of the headlight bucket cavities. I had the headlights installed when I shot the body because the car is a metallic and you want to shoot all the body surfaces at the same time with a metallic.

I also masked the holes in the BB hood so no direct spray would get into the engine compartment. I masked everything that would see direct wet spray as I shot the body.

You mentioned trying to "seal" the gaps. I assumed you meant you were going to try to insert some sort of seal to prevent any overspray from getting into the engine compartment. Just masking the edges worked fine for me. I didn't have any paint stick to anything in the engine compartment.

Good luck. It's a real kick when it's all done and beautiful.

Bill

[Alan S.]

Re: Looking for ideas to keep over-spray of of restored chassis

Hi Greg,
Here's a picture of the car being painted.
I believe you can see the combination of plastic and paper. The hood opening and the door openings were completly papered closed under the hood and doors. The doors and jambs had already been sprayed but the gaps weren't sealed and the amount of spray that got to the jambs was minimal.
I actually had the most trouble controlling the run off from the wet sanding and even that wasn't a big deal. As I said, was pleased with the little clean-up I had to do from the painting process.
I think part of the solution is having a painter who has faced all these situations before with Corvettes and has developed a way to deal with them.
Good Luck!
Regards,
Alan

When I went back to retrieve this picture from an earlier thread I realized it was your thread from 2008. So this is a second look for you!