I pulled my Oval out of storage today to get it ready for Tatton Park this weekend, when I took it for a test drive I noticed a noise from the O/S/R wheel so took it home for further inspection.

As usual, after noticing what the fault was my mind wandered onto something else.....I wonder what's under all that underseal?

Now I knew I had a good car, it's completely original and unrestored but you never quite know how good something truly is until you've had a poke around. So I sprayed a bit of WD40 onto the underseal to soften it before getting a small blunt ply bar to gently scrape the surface to see what it would reveal.

I was most surprised when it slowly peeled away to reveal this.....

:thumbup:

I was then able to just use my hands to pull on the edges and managed to remove large sections in one go.....



On this one you can actually see the imprint of a run in the paint in the underseal...



And this is the section of the arch that has the paint runs



Another section that I really liked was on the body mounting panel that shows the number 3 stamped into the panel and the imprint left in the underseal....



How about this for a bumper mount and side panel of the engine bay (underside)....



Even the inside of the wings are perfect!



One last image of the complete arch, looks like I'll have to remove the wing so really get it cleaned properly but I promise to re-use the original bolts and washers :smile:

:drool: You've stated some thing there, where you gonna stop?

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Very nice!

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That is a nice find :d . Any chance of a veiw of all the car? Also what was the noise from the back? Andy

Very nice, I've long been tempted to peel off an exploratory patch of the underseal on my '57, just not sure what I would find. I might have a go now I've seen yours.

Pics of the whole car would be good!

Mike

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Clear Waxoyls' your friend. :wink:

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That's the problem! What do I do now, no going back. I've resisted for so long not to touch it but the temptation 'just to see' got too much for me. Looks like I'll have to go the whole hog now to make sure what the rest of the car is like.

54 Gertie Posted: 04 August 2011 12:10:46
Clear Waxoyls' your friend.

And a 'carcoon' if anyones got one they want to get rid of?

Mike Peckham Posted: 04 August 2011 12:10:25
Very nice, I've long been tempted to peel off an exploratory patch of the underseal on my '57, just not sure what I would find. I might have a go now I've seen yours.

DO IT!!

Pics of the whole car would be good!

AW Posted: 04 August 2011 11:22:53
That is a nice find . Any chance of a veiw of all the car? Also what was the noise from the back? Andy

Hub was loose!

pre67vw Posted: 04 August 2011 11:09:41
Very nice!
"Old boys have their playthings as well as young ones; the difference is only in the price."
— Benjamin Franklin

Thanks!

LOADS of pics of the car here......
https://s427.photobucket.com/albums/pp352/bob-on/56%20Oval/?start=all 

Thanks for the link. What a lovely car you have there :thumbup: :thumbup: Andy

What a nice discovery!

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Great car:thumbup:

Well I took the rear wing off to clean everywhere properly, it's come out quite well. I've not cleaned the bolts as yet but they will get done before the cleaned wing goes back on. Zero rust issues.....



Even the torsion tube has nice clean shiney black paint on it...



After having such a nice find on the rear wing section I decided I wanted to see what the front was like so I removed the wing and found this.....



After taking the rest of it off and giving it a bit more of a clean up it turned out nice too.....





I've not had chance to clean up the front axle and rest of the areas as yet but now that I've started then I'm going to have to carry on now. Lets just hope that the rest of the car turns out to be so good. :thumbup:

Best not get carried away because I've got to get it all back together yet, cleaned and ready for Tatton on Sunday!

Bloody nora, look at that! Oof. It's a shame I'm most likely giving Tatton a miss this year, as I'd have liked to see those undergarments for real.

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Dont want to put a downer on it but now you have removed what looked like a very good under body protection covering. Whats going to protect if for the next 50+ years? are you going to treat it to some moden day covering ?? will be intresting to see if new is better than old. This is not a negative post just wondering what the plan of attack was going to be. It's still a lovely looking car :thumbup: Andy

That stuff is better taken off.
If it chips and water gets behind it,that's when trouble can creep in.Some of the modern protectives are much better.
Is it original paint or was the car restored and then covered:?: If it's original that is fantastic.

The factory under body protection is good stuff, but I don't think even they thought it would last 50+ years...

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Did Ovals have that???

Not as far as I'm aware. Only dealer-applied stuff.

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Well I hoped not to get carried away but I've ended up cleaning off all 4 inner arches. In response to the question of protection, it will be getting treated to more modern applications.

The question of whether it is original or not, I can tell you that it is truly unrestored and blew me away when I took the underseal off which I why I decided to share the images. Have a look at my previous reply giving the link to the pics of the car and you will see detailed shots of it's originality.

I can honestly say that had I known how good it was below then I wouldn't have removed it but once you've started you can't stop can you?

Anyway, have a look at the pics from today. First up, factory chalk markings on inner wing......





Then when cleaned up.....



Like the other side, this is also stamped with a number.....



Just have a look at the inside of the rear light cluster, the other one is the same too - amazing....



In this shot you can see how the body has been painted at the factory, there are lots of parts of the inner wings, under side of wings, sections of the bonnet, the bottom of the doors which are like this and only have a 'dusting' of paint.



Front inner wing all done too.

Ok, well when I took the under body coating off our oval there were the factory chalk marking under that as well, so I'd assumed it was put on at the factory.

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the factory did apply underseal as standard, single coat regular areas(europe)double coats extreme climates(norway,sweden,finland)