Well, that was fun.

[Shvegel]

After the metal work on my shell was done I sent it off the be dipped in E-coat primer.  After that it want back to Rick my painter to be finished.  I knew that there were supposed to be 5 bare metal circles under the hood for grounds and that the serial number stamped into the right frame rail was also supposed to be bare metal.  I thought about sending Rick some pictures and having him remove the E-coat in those spots and mask them before top coating but I decided that I would just bead blast the spots after the car had been top coated.  Well, that was a mistake.  Between the e-coat and the top coat I couldn’t get through it before my maskings would deteriorate.  I ended up trying several different things but finally settled on a 2 layer aluminum tape making and carefully brushing the areas with paint remover and scraping it with a plastic wire tire. After that a light bead blast made it all happy.  It was really nerve wracking and took almost 4 hours.  Lesson learned.

[Pawel66]

What about those in the headlights housings?

[Shvegel]

Forgot about those.  They are easy because they won't be staring me in the face everytime I open the hood.

[Pawel66]

True!

[johnk]

This is a good reminder for me as I plan on putting my secon coat of primer on the engine compartment in the near futures. I forgot to put the circle stickers on it before I primered it the first time. I will strip of the primer in those spots and use the sticker circles before I apply the second coat.

How big is the bare metal area around the serial number? Mine was painted over when I bought the car.

[Shvegel]

John,
See attached original serial number picture.   Also on your car I believe the rubber body plugs along the top of the front inner fenders after primer but before paint.  They get painted with the engine compartment.

[doitwright]

And the metal under the BST (Brass Spring Thing) for radio noise suppression that fits under the hood latch mechanism.

[Scottcorvette]

You're going to have to do the same on the ones behind the headlights, you'll know they are there......

my VIN wasn't bare metal, it was the same mushroom colour as the back of all the panels Ive taken off.

[waltklatt]

Seems to me that some cars had the VIN number stamped on the frame rail with a rather heavy hand (pushing the metal down more then others).
Do all of you see this same thing?
Just curious.
Walter

[Benz Dr.]

Yup, it's stamped in and sunk in at the same time. The unpainted area around the numbers should be primer color. Looks like when they finished the car they applied the pull off tabs except the VIN, then they hit it with primer, and then applied another sticker over the VIN numbers. After the car was painted then they removed all the pull offs.

[johnk]

Thanks everyone! very helpfull informatio now!

[Shvegel]

Walt,
Think of it this way.  I thimk the chassis are completed before stamping which means that in order to stamp the serial number there is no way to back up the stamping.  You have to crush the rail in order to get a good imprint.