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Is the belly of an '02 painted the color of the car?


Guest dq48

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Yes, but it's not painted directly more of a quick point and squirt so most of them loose color towards the center and show more of the primer color  if you get what I mean.

If everybody in the room is thinking the same thing, then someone is not thinking.

 

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Planning the Normandy Break out 1944

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21 hours ago, saaron said:

My car is Verona - it is Verona underneath, and if you pull up the carpets you see Verona.

 

Scott

 

Scott,

 

I'm in the Son of Marty camp on this issue, but we may simply be defining "painted" and "belly" differently!

 

Dan,

 

The floor pan and chassis underside was, indeed, painted body color, inside and out, as opposed to black or some other color.  But...it was very poorly painted, and the parts that "didn't often show" varied in their painting quality.  Wheel wells were fully painted.  The passenger compartment side of the chassis (i.e., the car's interior) was thinly painted with the body color over the car's primer, sufficiently thin that the body color often looks not quite right, e.g., a light overspray of Malaga might look more like purple than burgundy in spots.  You can generally judge the car's original color by looking under the rear seat, but if it's beautiful, i.e., a solid color the same shade as the exterior, it's been re-painted.  The true underside (exterior) of the car was appreciably worse than the interior -- yes, worse.  Much of the body color on the underside takes the form of overspray.  The car's floor, from the exterior, might be a solid body color near the rocker panels but the paint grows thinner as you approach the driveline hump.  Up in the driveline hump, you probably have a blast or two of paint and/or overspray, with the primer becoming more prominent.  The left and rear sides of the spare tire well are solid body color, but that color becomes thinner as you move away from the left rear quarter panel and the lower rear valance.

 

If your car's underside is beautiful, i.e., the entire bottom is as richly colored as the top side, it did not come from the factory that way: it has been re-painted -- and "over-restored" in some people's opinion.

 

There have been multiple other threads on this topic, many with good photos, e.g.:

 

 

Below: the quite original, but also somewhat-dirty, underside of my Inka '73.  There is modern overspray -- i.e., not factory overspray -- on the rear tow hook and the rear of the spare tire well.  It's easily distinguishable because it's applied over a layer greasy filth!  Note that when the Inka looks more like Colorado, we're talking thin paint!

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

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Edited by Conserv

1976 2002 Polaris, 2742541 (original owner)

1973 2002tii Inka, 2762757 (not-the-original owner)

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30 minutes ago, Son of Marty said:

I took "the belly" to be the underside of the car, the floor pan was a better job of painting but still not up to the exterior paint quality

 

That's what I thought, too.  But then I thought "maybe he means both sides of the floor pan."

 

Mine looks like the Inka car.  I took the OP's question to be more of "is the bottom black (or some color like that), or body color."  I was trying to say the only color there is on an 02 is the body color.  And as you say, the primer under it, which is more prominent in the places the body color didn't reach.  

 

But it's not like certain parts were black and certain parts were body color. 

 

Scott

02ing since '87

'72 tii Euro  //  '21 330i x //  '14 BMW X5  //  '12 VW Jetta GLI

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Thanks All, You've answered my question. I did mean the underbelly of the car. I certainly will not "over restore" it but it's great to get other opinions. Thanks Again, dq

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2 hours ago, saaron said:

 

That's what I thought, too.  But then I thought "maybe he means both sides of the floor pan."

 

Mine looks like the Inka car.  I took the OP's question to be more of "is the bottom black (or some color like that), or body color."  I was trying to say the only color there is on an 02 is the body color.  And as you say, the primer under it, which is more prominent in the places the body color didn't reach.  

 

But it's not like certain parts were black and certain parts were body color. 

 

Scott

 

Yep, we're on the same page, Scott: it was just a matter of defining "painting"!

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

1976 2002 Polaris, 2742541 (original owner)

1973 2002tii Inka, 2762757 (not-the-original owner)

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Thanks All, You've answered my question. I did mean the underbelly of the car. I certainly will not "over restore" it, but, it's great to get other opinions. Thanks Again, dq

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Difficult to achieve anything other than an 'over restored' finish if you have gone to the bother of completely stripping the underside to bare steel. Who would then leave it with a bit of a blow over the primer?

 

sorry, I would need to lose the points on the concourse there. 

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My build blog:http://www.bmw2002faq.com/blog/163-simeons-blog/

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1 hour ago, Simeon said:

Difficult to achieve anything other than an 'over restored' finish if you have gone to the bother of completely stripping the underside to bare steel. Who would then leave it with a bit of a blow over the primer?

 

sorry, I would need to lose the points on the concourse there. 

 

I'm with Simeon ... I prefer the protection of proper paint over replicating lazy production methods from back in the day. -KB

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Well, if I had to strip my cars' undersides entirely bare, I would probably over-restore them.  But my process with the '76 and the '73 is to strip only areas of the underside where it is absolutely necessary -- both are very-low-rust -- so my intention is to cover those spots with primer and then paint or "overspray" them to blend with the surviving original finishes.  Given the un-evenness of the original finish(es), and the small size of the affected areas, I'm confident we can "match" the original sloppiness.

 

Regards,

 

Steve

Edited by Conserv

1976 2002 Polaris, 2742541 (original owner)

1973 2002tii Inka, 2762757 (not-the-original owner)

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An excellent example of an original from-the-factory '02 underside, this one on a Euro-spec RHD tii undergoing a complete rebuild.  It's an Agave car, but notice how the thinness of the color on the underside allows some areas to be a pale reflection of the intense Agave color.  No shortage of primer showing, especially in the driveline hump.  Wheel wells?  Thickly and fully painted.

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

image.jpeg

Edited by Conserv

1976 2002 Polaris, 2742541 (original owner)

1973 2002tii Inka, 2762757 (not-the-original owner)

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