What was factory colour of chassis on spitfire 1500

[Chris Bracey]

Hi. Is there anywhere on the site that says what the original colour spitfire 1500 chassis were painted?

[thescrapman]

The bodies were bolted to the chassis then sent through the paint shop so the chassis will be body colour on most of the bits that you can see and black primer on the bits you can't see and the bits they couldn't be bothered to paint.

[Unkel Kunkel]

I fairly recently separated the body from the chassis of a 1973 MK1V Spitfire.

I know from the records of its one previous owner that this was the first time.The wheel arches had received the usual coating of bitumous underseal.

Where there was still paint, most of the chassis was in  the original pimento red. In some less accessible areas such as tops of chassis rails had some thin areas of a what looked like a matt red primer, perhaps  as overspray of body primer  when the body had been fixed on.Other areas  were in plain black as were parts of the chassis which were bolted to the body work.

This suggests, as the scrapman says,  that a  black painted chassis was bolted to the body then the combination sprayed with the the body  colour.

In general the paint coverage of the chassis was poor with some areas barely covered with what appears to be   a single coat of black.

I am always surprised they have lasted so long,really.

[Paul H]

What is the best strategy to preserve our chassis based classics - My Vitesse has been sprayed / painted with underseal ( not sure which brand ) so the plan is to repaint  areas where the seal has broken down then use you a propriety underseal over the whole of the underside including wheel arches . The bonnet has been undersealed and will try to hopefully remove and re paint  and then use translucent underseal . 

Planning to do this next winter so any advice / input would be appreciated -

Paul 

[Colin Lindsay]

Fill the entire chassis with Waxoyl until it runs out - and it will, for days afterwards - but at least the inside of the chassis, where water gathers, will be protected. Many of our cars rust from the inside out - seams, double skinned sections, or box sections, so fill the bottoms of doors and wings with a good wax treatment.

[Anglefire]

I personally wouldn’t use waxoyl these days. There are several much better alternatives. 

Correless or buzzweld (same basic stuff) do excellent stuff for protection and conversion of any rust to inert compounds. 

[eagerbeaver]

Yes, Waxoyl is not the best but better than nothing. 

If you are trying to follow originality, it is very difficult to get the detail right. 

On my GT6 restoration, as much as I like originality, I'm thinking of the chassis in black just because it's neater than relying on overspray for a finish so it will be body color body/underneath, black chassis. 

I'm thinking of a stone chip with top coat in body colour for floor pans and underneath wheelarches but just body colour for the rest of the front bulkhead.