STAGE 3

Painting, Coating and Re-assembly

1. The Chassis, Bracketry, Inner Panels and Components

As you have glimpsed in the last pictures in the previous pages, certain parts are completed. The chassis, after having been cleaned, blasted and sanded back to smooth, takes the primers and two pack perfectly, as do the other mild steel components. In this section, images speak far louder than words. It is time for before and after shots.
 

You will have noticed that the fittings on the chassis are now stainless steel. The advantages of this are ample. On a car that one wishes to last forever, you must provide for easy future repair. Rusting fittings prejudice this. Their only advantage is that rust is a natural "Loctite". Use graded stainless where that is called for.

2. Paint - choosing the color

When you restore a car, every paint color and paint effect in existence is available to you..as it is a new Morgan. Of course, many nations insist on water-based paints only these days, but the choices run into the 10s of 1000s. It is worth giving you a glimpse of our thought processes in choosing our color so you can widen your scope and find your color.

Of course, the practical choice is a pale pastel color. They don't show dirt and are easier to see at night. If you add a small flake metallic to them, they show dirt even less. That is why you see SO many light metallic colors these days. Dark colors are considerably more dramatic and classy but they are a deep chore to keep clean, especially when you choose a non-earth color.

All that being said, there is nothing practical about a Morgan so why try to make it so! (GRIN!) We had an idea to match the car to the leather. The leather was a dark blue that had darkened even more with age. To match we not only needed a cross between blue and black but something that would subtly change with light and angle.

Unlike metallic paints which contain a varying quantity of variously sized metal flakes that glint in the light, pearl paints contain tiny chips of synthetic inorganic crystalline substances (there are a variety that can be used) are added to a paint base. The sides of these crystals can be colored or clear and you
can have MANY sides. Effectively, you see different sides and colors as you look at the paint from different angles or a different light. Taken too far it can turn out "trick", but used carefully it creates a  discrete "trompe d'oie" that enhances features and the lines of the car without the onlooker noticing that there is a pearl effect at all.

We came upon a Bentley color that suited perfectly, a deep sapphire with a discrete pearl effect of a hint of lighter blue that relieves the somber dark sapphire. It sorta glints at you at the edges. (pics later) Very classy!

The world of car color paint is amazing. Morgans are one of the very few companies that allow their customers a 40,000+ color range to choose from. I have often wondered why more don't take advantage of that.