Source of blue tinted paint on underside of '67 Los Camaro floor

[Stillwater Camaro]

I had a feeling I had seen this before and went back thru my archives to a '67 GTO I restored many years ago and I believe that has something very similar on the floor, but it was so rusty, it's hard to say for certain. I replaced everything from the firewall to the rear bumper on that car, but some of the pics show a bluish hue thru the rust and dirt. One thing I am looking at is, the Fremont plant built A bodies for all the makes, Pontiac, Buick and Olds, besides the Chevrolet's Chevelle and Camaro. Was this something that would have been normally painted on the higher end cars ?? Was mine an employee ordered car that got a little something extra on the way down the line ?
When I started this thread, I thought this was a normative practice and was only looking for info to replicate it. Instead, it seems to have opened Pandora's box and could lead to new information, if someone with experience and sources, cared to go down that rabbit hole...

[GMAD_Van Nuys]

JonZ's article on painting describes that primer was hand-sprayed on the entire body:

http://www.camaros.org/assemblyprocess.shtml#fisherpaint

I remember when the Camaros and Firebirds came out of the paint oven after being primed as they were located on the second floor of the Van Nuys Plant and during the summer, it was hot!

[bcmiller]

I don’t know for sure but I just bet it’s not original. It’s NOT uncommon to take a car down to bare metal when restoring. Did it a few times in the early 80s with Impalas.

* edited to add word NOT

[Stillwater Camaro]

This car NEVER received a restoration of the level you suggest. It has had shoddy repair and paint work done to it in the past and I have documented every part of it through out my EXTENSIVE restoration. There is no way anyone took this down to a bare shell, sanded to bare metal and then painted the bottom blue. This isn't my first rodeo either, as they say. I've taken a number of cars down to shells and rebuilt them and have a very good idea of what I'm looking at. You haven't seen it in person nor have a good explanation of why it is blue, other than you don't want to believe it's original. I'm really tired of you being negative or any useful advice as to how this car got the bottom painted blue.
How do you explain the blue paint on the bottom of the Z28

[MO]

No Camaro's built at Fremont.

[bcmiller]

This car NEVER received a restoration of the level you suggest. It has had shoddy repair and paint work done to it in the past and I have documented every part of it through out my EXTENSIVE restoration. There is no way anyone took this down to a bare shell, sanded to bare metal and then painted the bottom blue. This isn't my first rodeo either, as they say. I've taken a number of cars down to shells and rebuilt them and have a very good idea of what I'm looking at. You haven't seen it in person nor have a good explanation of why it is blue, other than you don't want to believe it's original. I'm really tired of you being negative or any useful advice as to how this car got the bottom painted blue.
How do you explain the blue paint on the bottom of the Z28

Believe what you want. No reason to get upset.

I gave you an honest opinion. It doesn’t mean I am right.

[Z10Mike]

Stillwater Camaro:
After following this thread, I suspect there could be more to this blue paint than just an early amateur restoration.  Is there any owner history?  Are there any unique options on the car?  Is the blue paint a glossy top coat or a tinted primer?  Early production car?  Very curious, indeed.

[bcmiller]

It is buried earlier in the thread but this is the build data

3rd week of Feb

[Stillwater Camaro]

The only owner history I have is the previous owner on Point Reyes, CA. I got nothing else with the car. I've never felt it was worth getting the shipping data for the car, as it doesn't have the original engine or transmission, which was a powerglide. Maybe I should re-think that and see who it delivered to. There is a guy on the Yenko site that seems like a magician at finding old newspaper ads for these cars, but he hasn't come up with anything from the CA plate. He wants the shipping data to work with too, so I may as well get it.
Options: besides the SS350/powerglide, it has a console, the wood look steering wheel, speed minder, deluxe interior with the fold down back seat and the rs option. No radio came with it, but the speaker and rear brace was still there and, what appeared to be, the original package tray cardboard was under the shag fur cloth covering it and did not have a rear speaker hole. Power steering but manual 4 wheel drums.
As for the paint, after cleaning with just the simple green and cotton cloths, I can rub it to a fairly decent shine, more than I thought a primer would provide, but if it is lacquer, maybe it will shine some ? I'm not experienced with that product, but if it went thru a "blending" oven, it may have brought out a shine. It certainly is smooth. I haven't wiped a test area with lacquer thinner, but I suspect it will wipe off. I'll try that later this afternoon. I want to see if there is any evidence of black primer, or dip paint under it. If there is, it's very thin, as I don't see any black under, or around the edges of the blue.
I thought I had a pic of the TT on Photobucket, but didn't find it yesterday. I'll upload another and post it.

[Stillwater Camaro]

More cleaning and documenting of...whatever this is...
This was interesting. This clip has a plastic like washer under it to seal the hole ?





Rubber floor pan plug, with paint.



Traction bar bracket to floor fasteners that wasn't used, as the car is an auto. Paint in the threads.



This is, also, an interesting sequence. The undercoating appears to have been applied before the plastic drain hole plug was squished down into it.



The undercoating on the pan in the previous pic was, mostly, carefully removed to reveal the paint under it.



I, then, wiped the pan with clean water to remove any cleaner residue and took pics of the application method. The paint was applied from the center of the floor facing out, as evidenced by the "leeward" sides of the beads having nearly no paint on them.

[FRANKTHECRANK]

And the plot thickens,....lol. Certainly looks like factory applied paint, but that tag calls for  "G" Granada Gold.

[Dusk Blue Z]

Great job on the clean up.

[Stillwater Camaro]

Latest unveiling... original, untouched factory undercoating in the right rear wheel well. Normally, I go after this with an air chisel and dull blade and have it all off in 10 minutes. I didn't see any evidence of the blue primer in here, but started, carefully, scrapping down thru the undercoating looking for any sign of blue. As I got to the bottom of the undercoating, I was seeing a color I thought was bare metal, so stopped in that area and tried another. When I got the same result, I scrapped harder to clean up the metal and there was the Blue !!  When I put the trunk floor in 4 years ago, I had used the air chisel around the edge for welding and had gone to bare metal. I used scotch bright pads to clean the edge of where I had bare metal to show the 3, distinct, colors of bare steel, blue primer and, what I then realized was, Gold overspray on the primer. ALL of this UNDER the factory applied undercoating....

[cook_dw]

Being a LOS car, is there a chance that the car prior to this one was that color and it wasn't caught that the operator failed to clean out or swap paint tanks.?.  Not saying this was the case but just typing out loud if you will.

[Stillwater Camaro]

Don't think that is the case here, Darrell. I've talked with a few other people who verified they had LOS cars with this color underside too, but not as much as mine. I called Camaro Restorations in NY and talked with them and they have only seen a few LOS cars, mainly Norwood, but remember 1 or 2 having the bluish underside and not knowing what it was or where to get the paint so repainted black. I'm beginning to believe that is the case with many of the LOS cars that have been restored and people seeing them now, think it is original. 2 of the people had '69's, so my thinking this was a '67 only anomaly got thrown out too.