Black paint or is it primer on body panel

[TJR]

Over the last several years....I've collected a few new LR Genuine body panel pieces for my never-ending Ser III rebuild.

What is the black paint that is on both the steel and aluminum panels..
for example.. I purchased 2 new OE lower door bottoms, both steel and Alum construction.. yet painted black just the same?

Is it just a protective paint or is it a suitable base primer for other paint?

???

Talbot
Southern Maine...

[Leslie]

It's a protective coating (at one time I knew, can't remember at the moment... maybe epoxy-based?).... you don't have to remove it, but, you would definitely want to prime over it before painting. Wash the part down, prime, then sand and wash again, reprime, and then evaluate before proceeding with however much more priming/sanding is needed prior to going to paint coats.

[SafeAirOne]

When my weld-in replacement doorpost came from Rovers North, it was painted with the balck protective coating. This is not paint, but rather a plastic-like concoction. PVC probably. When you scrape it with a screwdriver it chips and flakes off.

If it is the same stuff you're talking about, I don't think it would make a good base for paint--It flakes right off when you scratch it. In other words, it doesn't actually adhere to the metal, but rather forms a shell AROUND the metal. I ground off the protective coating in the weld areas when I welded the foot to the doorpost. It was almost impossible to get off with the grinder bacause it just melts into sticky goop. Same with the coating on the perephery of the weld area after welding.

I took me a while to figure out what to do about the stuff, but I found a fairly painless way to remove the black coating:

Find a well ventilated area, get dressed up in solvent-safe rubber gloves, put on some goggles or even better, a full face shield, and rub the part down with Methyl-Ethyl-Ketone (MEK). MEK is sold at Home Depot-type stores as PVC PRIMER for preparing PVC plumbing pipes for cementing.

Don't get the type with the purple dye--It'll just stain everything. Use the clear type. The can comes with an applicator built into the lid. Just rub sections of the part down with the solvent and wipe with papar towels. 2 or three passes per section did it for me, and, except where the stuff melted because of the welding, the resulting part looked like it never had the black coating on it in the first place.

MEK is pretty powerful stuff, so PLEASE use protective equipment. Even through the supposedly solvent-proof (thin) gloves, my fingers began to tingle a bit after about 1/2 hour. I have no doubt that blindness would be the result of splashing it in the eyes.

Also be warned that that you should not do this on the kitchen counter, since the black protective coating thats coming off stains everything in sight. My plywood workbench still has a 2 foot long black "birthmark" on it.

[Leslie]

When my weld-in replacement doorpost came from Rovers North, it was painted with the balck protective coating. This is not paint, but rather a plastic-like concoction. PVC probably. When you scrape it with a screwdriver it chips and flakes off. If it is the same stuff you're talking about, I don't think it would make a good base for paint--It flakes right off when you scratch it. In other words, it doesn't actually adhere to the metal, but rather forms a shell AROUND the metal.

Ah, but that's on steel bits, not aluminum.... I do think it's different.... and I agree, the black stuff on steel bits flakes off.....


Definitely check the stability of it first, see if it's something that readily flakes.... if so, then no, you don't want to pain over it. If it's stable and doesn't flake, then prime over it and see how it does....

[SafeAirOne]

Ah, but that's on steel bits, not aluminum.... I do think it's different.... and I agree, the black stuff on steel bits flakes off.....

Good point. The black stuff used on aluminum is probably different. A brief look at my 109 will confirm that I've never changed (and therefore ordered) any aluminum on it!

[TJR]

I'll check our the adhesion on the door panel skin vs the metal frame work... interesting.. TJR