Wheel well color

[wkohler]

All I’ve ever heard is that these cars had body-color wheel wells. On my 4/70 Polaris 2800 CS, that does not appear to be the case.

I was doing some cleaning today on the car after removing the engine by dropping the subframe and while cleaning, I discovered this black paint. There’s no overspray on anything including the front subframe, which I think is impossible if it was done after the fact and I am confident I was the first person to remove the front bumper from this original paint car. I have only done cleaning in the front (and I feel as though they’ve never been cleaned), but I did clean a small spot in the right rear and same thing.

Here’s the right side of the subframe. No overspray on it.

Note the black in the slots where the carriage bolts for the bumper bracket go.

The left side isn’t as well covered.

As mentioned, here’s a small spot in the right rear corner of the right rear wheel well. Also black.

I’m pretty confident in suggesting this is original and I guess it’s a data point.

 

[HB Chris]

Chris, I don’t know what to tell you. Our 1/70 Polaris 2800 has body color wheel wells. Every frame I have seen is smooth and body color where yours appears to be black undercoating. The original undercoat is grey.

 

[OCCoupe]

Chris, I’ll fly down tomorrow and confirm what Chris is talking about. Okay?

 

[HB Chris]

Chris, I’ll fly down tomorrow and confirm what Chris is talking about. Okay?

What color is yours?

 

[OCCoupe]

What color is yours?

That’s a very person question.

 

[OCCoupe]

I think it’s plausible that light color cars could have had wheel wells painted black. I’m not sure if they carried the same practices over to other models. This would be a good question for Chuck Rich.

 

[HB Chris]

My Chamonix was white.

 

[wkohler]

The black is just paint. It’s not undercoating. It will come off as it has in various areas and you can see the silvery paint over the schutz under it. I first noticed it because I saw a run on the bottom of the right frame rail while cleaning it up. As I continued to clean it off, it became more obvious to me that it was there before the grommets for the brake lines, the fasteners that hold the bracket for the brake booster, the bumper brackets, etc. None of the fasteners have paint on them. I think a lacquer thinner would pretty easily take it off since the scrubbing process has affected it. If it's original (and from all I can tell it appears to be, as I don't know why you'd be so thorough to remove all the stuff and do such a crap job with the application), I want to preserve it.

 

[eriknetherlands]

Interesting pictures. I too would think that the black was applied when all components (screws, grommets, axle, etc) were not present.

I personally wouldn't think it was done at the factory, as that would make your car the only one like this and therefor that doesn't sound likely. So other options are that the dealer did it while importing the car (unlikely me thinks as it's a lot of work to dismount all the screws and grommets just for the black paint. This would leave my last option as the most likely scenario: a PO did it a long time ago during a refresh.

but I'm thin on facts here, just speculating.
I'd preserve it too, as it kinda belongs to the car after such a long time.
Your car is good on the rust department by the way; whish my car had such nice straight body seams with factory spot welds!

 

[Krzysztof]

I know a lot of patient people who are ready to sacrifice their time and money to makes the things better. Still many of Such Guys are on this Forum.

Having said that I'm not surprised somebody did it in the past.

What is more, even in the User Manual it is a statement that after a year BMW recommends to renew the body protection to increase the operation life of the vehicle.

In the past, for some brands body protection after a year was obligatory to keep the warranty of the car's body and paint.