VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 Primer on '31 fenders

I am in process of chemically stripping the front fenders for my Canadian built '31 Coach. I have all the '60's era black paint over paint and red primer off, and am down to what appears to be a grey/green primer, the last material before the bare steel. It is very tough, and the chemical primer does not seem to affect it at all, so I plan to clean things up and leave it as is. My ? is were all sheet metals finished with this primer, and what type of product is it? Much of this material on my 83 year old fenders is in perfect condition.

It sure sounds like hypoxy primer although this product didn't come on the seen until much later. I painted my car using first, hypoxy, then two part primer surfacer, color coat, and finally a clear coat. I had to re-due one fender down to bear metal by sandblasting and experienced exactly what you described. Everything came off easily save the hypoxy.

The primer used on the 1931 cars manufactured in the USA was Red Oxide.

On close inspection, it appears the grey/green product was sprayed over the original black paint, likely in the 60's or 70's (not sure what it is), then red oxide put on top of it, and then black paint. As for the original finish, the black paint on my feneders appears to be applied directly to the bare metal, no sign of any other color, no evidence of red oxide etc. I've checked undersides as well which have 75% original black paint, and there is no sign of primer there either. Oh well, who knows, not that it matters, my painter just wants a smooth solid and suitable surface for his work. I'm doing the dog work (sorry JYD), stripping, tapping out minor dings, straightening the beaded edges, repairing the wells, etc. Only about 3 weeks work per fender!

My 32 fenders were the same as yours didnt seem to have any primer under the topcoat. The body was as jyd said red primer.

The fenders and other chassis sheet metal were dipped. It is a direct coating on the bare metal without primer. The bodies had primer under the paint.

OK that explains the different painting technique lower versus upper sheet metal. I see on back of fenders the "runs" from being dipped. Wonder how they avoided runs on the upper surface? Likely how they pulled them from the tank.

The fenders were pulled from the paint tank and supported so the top side drained off the paint. Any rare runs that remained on the show surface were taken down with a pumice block and then polished.