black paint, engine compartment/valances/rockers Options

[porbmw]

I know that, by and large, this has been discussed, here and there....but with some apparent gaps.

I'm going to see if I can summarize what I have garnered, mainly with direction from Steve Gaglione, who owns one of most pristine and unmolested 914s in existence.

My quest started with the engine compartment. I have done a complete bare metal paint on a previously painted car.

The color is done..and is getting wet sanded...but that leaves me to do all of the black....and that led to my contacting Steve.

Issue #1 The 2 uprights in the engine compartment... the ones that house the rubber bumpers on top, upon which the engine lid rests. The uprights are painted body color....until one gets to the top, where they are black.
Question...the top part of the bracket...is it a soft or a hard line, where it meets the upright part of the brace.
Answer...it is a soft line, about 1/16inch down from the flat top. Steve thinks they likely were hand painted, the line is not perfectly straight..he suggests spraying some flat black into a container, then with a 1/4 to 3/8 artist's brush painting it by hand
Question...color...as noted...flat.

Issue #2 Sheen of the engine lid that is below the mesh...Steve believes that it is the same as the uprights...flat.

Issue #3...Sheen of the mesh on the sides and the engine lid. Steve believes it has more of a gloss, perhaps Wurth Satin. I found this particularly interesting...in that it means there are 2 sheens of black paint in that area.

That lead me to the next query.

Issue #4....the front and rear valances and rocker panels. I will comment that I recently bought an almost pristine snowplow that appears to be unmolsted, barely used, with factory paint...it has a satin appearance, very little sheen. Steve's car has all factory original paint...he used a Meguiars' Swirl Remover and some Cleaner Wax on them way back in 2003, says they looked great....and not as much sheen as was put onto a 6 (powder coat) semi-gloss of about 65-70%. He concurs that they are closer to a satin than a semi gloss

Issue #5....texture. The snowplow I bought...and from my very vague 40 year old recollection, the 74 that I bought new and sold within the year....have essentially no texture....smooth.... Steve concurs..."a smooth texture but with some orange peel"

So..... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/stirthepot.gif)

[Pat Garvey]

I had my 72 paint resprayed in 1979. It had been a semi-daily driver/concours car. I friend of mine (Greg Gandee) was also a concours weenie (72 Targa). We went to 3M, the maker of Body Shutz, to get the specifics for both of these cars. We were informed that the material on the F & &side valences was indeed "Shutz" and that it could be replaced with their compounds and spray guns.

We bought the gun and bulk materials do do so, stripped the panels per instruction and primed. The instructions for the shutz indicated that different textures would be performed using different air pressures with the gun, but that the Porsche factory had used 33 psi for the effect in production, but that different results would come from trial and error. We did Greg's 911 first at 33 psi. Too stippled. Back the pressure down to 28 psi for my 914. Perfect. Nice texture, but semi-smooth finish. Still, it wasn't just right. So, while it was still tacky we rubbed all panels down very lightly with kerosene until then texture was sightly orange peeled. t nearly perfectly matched the same panels of another friends' unrestored 71 914.

After about 2 weeks, when the panels were ready t go back onto my 72, I waxed them for protection. No, I didn't use conventional wax. It was Turtle Wax's black vinyl top wax (still have some). Took the wax perfectly, blackened it a bit, wiped off with no residue. Looks great 35 years later.

BTW, I still use this compound (which I suspect is just back shoe polish) today on the roof and lower panels. Good luck finding some.

Amazing what the brain cells conjur up after so many years.