Guide to the blackout effect

This information is a sincere effort to impart a basic understanding of automobile technology. If, while attempting to apply any of the ideas, procedures or suggestions herein, you should experience any kind of automobile system failure, it will be as a result of your own conscious decision and actions. All authors of text found here, or anywhere on this site, disclaim responsibility for any reader's actions, and any damage, injury, or death that occured or may occur based on information found herein. Before proceeding, please read our disclaimer.

Researching your Restoration

The information found here wasn't compiled by restoration experts. There are experts that can comment on the accuracy of restoration details with much more authority that this author, however restoration information of this particular subject matter remains sanct on the Internet. Those that do have the expert knowledge of Mopar restorations could benefit us all with a book or a website, but those certainly are not small undertakings.

With this in mind, this author has made this web page available as a minor resource. Its not presented with the idea that it is the final word on the subject matter, instead it ought to be little more than one of many resources that one uses in his or her restoration research. Afterall, a restoration is only as good as the research behind it, and the quality of the research is not be measure solely by quanity, but also the open-mindedness of the researcher.

Blackout treatment

This article discusses a paint effect that was often applied to light colored passenger cars to darked the light colored areas that was visiable through the grille of several Mopars of the 1960s and 1970s including all years of A-bodies, B-bodies, C-bodies, and E-bodies. It is an often overlooked aspect of a restoration that, depending on the characteristics of the grille and radiator core support, can make a car look rather odd, and in the case of a show car, can result in frowns on the faces of knowledgable judges.

To say that this applies to all cars might be a stretch. The method by which this was applied, the type of paint used, and to which automobiles it was applied to seems to vary among the manufacturing plants, make, model, and year. From what has been written in magazine articles and restoration guides I have surmised, that its application was left to the discretion of a line worker who had to decide whether the body paint of a particular car was on the list of "light colored" cars at that particular plant.

The practice varied in many aspects from plant to plant and year to year. For some plants and platforms, it was applied from an line worker standing in a pit, after the headlight wiring was in place, spraying upward and covering the outer sides of the core support. on the otherhand, for some late 1960s A-bodies assembled at Hamtramck, it seems that the worker was not in a pit, as some of the top of the core support was hit with the blackout effect as well.

Quality control was important in the Sixties, perhaps not as important as it is now, but nonetheless it was important. While the blackout effect wasn't applied with the same quality that exterior paint and striping was applied, it was applied somewhat consistently car to car, in terms of what areas were covered.

1963 Dodge 330 example

The type of paint applied seems to have varied over the years. Some forty years later the blackout effect had all but completely faded and or washed away from this 1963 Dodge 330, which suggests that a poorer quality paint might have been used in these years. These two pictures barely show what was left of the behind the grille blackout before paint. Though one might think this would be applied with a flat black paint, in the case of this 1963 Dodge, there was a minimal about of sheen remaining with the remants of the blackout effect, and after verifying it with some other B-body experts, I chose to use a semi-gloss black to restore it.

Here is how I restored it.

1964 Plymouth Sport Fury example

On a (DD-1 Medium Blue Poly) 1964 Sport Fury that I helped part out, the blackout effect extended up to the top edge of the front facing radiator core support and was applied after the headlight wiring harness was installed. For this car, the overspray indicated that it was, in fact, not applied by a paint gun angled up at a 45° angle, but closer to straight on at a 90° angle, however this might have varied from plant to plant!

Though its not a perfect specimen of a b-body core support, and it is somewhat dirty and beat up, at least the sheen and coverage was well exampled. The sheen appears to be a semi-gloss black.

1964 Dart Example

My 1964 Dart 170 isn't a cream puff survivor, but it has never been restored, and the remains of what the line worker at the Los Angeles assembly plant did in applying the blackout treatment still serves as a good reference. This is treatment is the same treatment as all 1964-1966 A-bodies that I've seen and made note of.

At first glance, it looks as if the car was sprayed from below, and the top of the radiator core support is not blacked out. Upon further study, it is evident that the upper grille support was installed at some point when body color was applied, however a majority of this section is blacked out as well.

Though the method of the application of the blackout treatment is not know for certain, these pictures do a good job of illrustrating the finished effect.

1966 Dart example

This 1966 Dart 270 is a WW-1 White car assembled at Hamtramck. The blackout is very similar to the 1964 Dart exampled above but I included it because it varied slightly only because the fenders and grille support are of a different design.

1966 Coronet example

This is a 1966 model Coronet from the St. Louis plant. It is EE-1 Dark Poly Blue and does not have any blackout treatement due to its dark color.

1967 Dart example

On this Hamtramck built 1967 Dart GT, the blackout effect was applied with a flat black and with much more coverage that some earlier examples. The blackout covers the top of the core support as well as some of the inside. This is very different from most, if not all other 1967-1976 A-bodies I've seen. Most do not have the blackout effect exceeding the top edge of the core support. I don't know if it corrolates but this car was also equipped with option 579 Undercoat & underhood pad.

Another diverence from whats most commonly found is that the latch support is given the black out effect and on some A-bodies, this is left body color (expecially on all 1967-1969 Barracudas).

please note that on this car, the radiator has been replaced in these pictures and the fenders were removed and primered.

Other examples:

No pictures are given, here, just a description of how it appeared to me. Sources are given, so please do your own verification.

1964 Dodge Polara. Car Life Magazine Dec 1963. Shows blackout below second lip, not above.

1964 Barracuda. Hot Rod Magazine July 1964. shows blackout same as the above 1964 Dart.

1965 Coronet. Car Craft Magazine 1965. shows blackout on light colored Coronet below the second lip on the cowl, (not above lower lip).

1966 Dodge Dart (D/Dart). Car Craft 1966. shows blackout on light colored dart to be the same as the above 1964 Dart.

1967 Dodge Charger photographed in "Reference Original: Golden Retriever" Aug 1993, Mopar Action. At the time, the ZZ-1 Charger was owned by Roger Gibson. blackout was up to the top lip, covering the entire cowl, even the area above the radiator hole. (Bill Brunt).

References

"Digging for Gold" Mopar Action Aug 2004. "How to avoid common restoration mistakes". Richard Ehrenberg.

"Restoration Investigation" Dave Ferro. p.18. Nov 1999. High Performance Mopar.