Painting Dash - Under the Front Windshield:

[Captain D]

Hello all,

In a few weeks, we'll be removing the front windshield to sand & treat the area on the dash directly in front of the windshield. It'll be removed so that we can treat those areas that have rust and to replace the windshield altogether because the old one has the fog. We're building a General Lee and it is going tan. For those who have done this, what type of paint was used? Seeing how this area will receive a lot of heat from the sun, is there a particular paint that works best on this area? I'm sure that during the show, they probably weren't too concerned with the longevity; just the look for a brief time. But, what would hold up not only against heat, but also rust?

Thank you for your time & any any suggestions!
Aaron

[Mike DC]

   

I'll tell you a bigger issue than rust or UV wear - the visibility issues. 



Notice that on virtually all cars & trucks, modern or old, the factory doesn't put a very light/bright color on the top of the dash.  There's a reason for this.  Think of what happens when you leave a white piece of paper or something on the dash.  It reflects strongly in the windshield almost as if it was taped to surface of the glass. 

The later-series General Lees had a real reflection problem with those buckskin-colored dashboard tops.  You can see it during some occasional shots when the cameraman was sitting inside a moving GL looking out the windshield.  There was even one season#7 episode where the top of the dashboard looks like they blacked it out with black tape or something in order to shoot the in-car footage.

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The factory "saddle tan" 1969 Chargers got their dashboards (and lower kick panels & A-pillar & windshield trim too) done a shade darker than the rest of the seats/door panels.   It was more of a dull brown, actually very close to a GL's interior from season #3 or early #4.

SEM's interior spray paint line includes the perfect color for this, which was also almost surely the shade that the Valuzets were spraying on the interiors of those cars for a while - it's called "Bluebird brown."  I have a factory-tan 1969 Charger and this SEM color is perfect match for the dash shade.  I could custom-mix the shade and I'd probably hardly get any closer.



There was a variation in this stuff from the factory.  All colored interiors tended to do the dash/windshield area a shade darker & flatter than the main shade (on the seats & doors), and then they'd generally do the headliner & its side & rear window trim a shade lighter than the main one.  But how much darker & lighter were these shades than the main seat/door shade?  It seems to really vary from car-to-car.  (Or at least it varied factory-to-factory, or maybe batch-to-batch of the parts.)  I've seen some cars with the dash & headliner colors nearly the same as the primary shade, whereas my own car and some others that I've seen has them VERY different. 


Here's the factory tan breakdown if you do it with the closest SEM spray-can shades:   

Main shade on the seats/doors - "Camel Tan"
Dashboard/side lower kick panels/windshield edge trim - "Bluebird Brown"
Headliner/side & rear window edge trim - "Light Oak"

These two darker & lighter shades are both virtually identical to my car's factory-done shades in these areas.  (Although like I said, some other cars were built with the shades much closer together than my car was.)  I was originally assuming I would end up custom-mixing some paint shades for these areas, but the dark & light SEM colors are so close that I won't bother now that I found them.

The main "Camel Tan" shade isn't quite perfect though, it's a tiny bit too bright/saturated and a bit too yellowish for it.  Although it's still not bad at all.  Some kind of mix of all three shades together in a can would probably produce the ideal main shade.

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BTW, I think the SEM sprays can still be bought in raw canned form if you contact the company, as well as the typical aerosol spray-can versions that you normally find in auto body stores.

[Captain D]

Hello Mike, your knowledge about the General Lees' never ceases to amaze me .

I agree, that the lighter tan/buckskin is way too light for the dash. This is part of the reason why we're building an earlier Lee with the darker tan/saddle. Since this area is metal, and not vinyl, can the SEMS brand in general be used on this area? The Camel shade, or even Palomino tan, would be great, but do you know of any products that have similar shades of color to the SEMS, but specifically for metal/rust concerns if the SEMS vinyl products cannot be used on this specific area?

Some folks round' here at home have suggested Rustoleum or high temp paint, but I think that I should learn more bout' my options before I go and rush out to buy just anything.

Thank you again for your time and suggestions,
Aaron

[Mike DC]

 
Honestly I would just SEM it and forget it.  It's not the most durable paint on earth but from my experience it's not bad at all.  The factory paints in that era were at least as crummy as anything we will replace them with.  The factory's paint on the metal areas seems to be a lacquer-based low-gloss layer that's already pretty similiar to the SEM canned stuff.  (And on my own car, which lived in cloudy states in Appalachia most of its life, the factory paint on top of the dash was still only moderately faded looking in the 1990s.) 



I believe the only chemical difference between a "vinyl" paint and a "metal" paint is the vinyl stuff getting a semi-gloss formulation and getting a flexing agent added into it.  If you were to ask the paint shop for a single-stage enamel or lacquer shade, to use on a urethane bumper cover, and asked them to also make it semi-flat . . .  you'd probably have the same chemical makeup as a "vinyl" paint right there.  IMHO lacquer seems to work better as a vinyl paint than enamel though.  (DuPont's professional body-shop grade vinyl paint is enamel-based, and it isn't nearly as good as the spray-can SEM stuff IMHO.)




For the metal, maybe hit it with a similar shade of good catalyzed urethane or something to go under the SEM paint.  Remember I said the SEM stuff is lacquer-based, so you have to make sure it won't attack the paint underneath it when you use it as a topcoat.  Lacquers have a habit of doing that to weaker/uncured enamels.



Another (better?) option would be to use the SEM coat as the lower one.  Lacquers' chemical properties don't put up the same fight when they're the bottom layer and they're already fully cured.  You could topcoat the SEM with some kind of durable clear layer that offers decent UV protection.  A good catalyzed clear urethane might do it.

But beware of the flexing issue if you use a clearcoat on padded vinyl stuff.  And beware of the matte/flat surface issue particularly on the top of the dash frame & pad.  You really don't want any gloss on that area at all. 

[Captain D]

Hello Mike,

Excellent info! I've actually bookmarked it so that I can come back to this valuable source in just a few weeks!  Thank you again, and I'd really love to see your Charger if you happen to have any pics available. Thank you again for your time and suggestions!
Highest regards,
Aaron

[BROCK]

I've heard it said that you can mix 50 gallons of paint; paint cars till
the paint is gone; park the first & last car beside each other & tell a
difference in their shades