Underbody protection

[balimatharu]

I had mine 250sl full body restoration done by classic car restorers.
All floor panels, all inner and outer wings and much more.
The restored shell is returned with no extra underbody protection. Looks beautiful showing all well done seams.
I wonder if it necessary to cover up the paint work with some sort of underbody protection.
The body shop don’t think it would be necessary.
 I have read a few forums about this topic but nobody has mentioned that underbody is not always necessary.
Could someone advise me as to do it or not.
Bali

[114015]

(OMG ... )

Bali,
Oh, what did they say/reommend to you...?

Yes, undercarriage protection is highly recommended.
Depending where you live and what you intend to do with your car (only show, disposal, garage, trailer queen or real driving)
I can only provide the recommedation to do so.

From the factory our cars had a thick layer of Body-Schutz or protection against gravel
especially around all the areas where stones, gravel/road dirt can hit the underbody.
I.e. wheel houses and beyond. The other more non-accessible areas (like underside of tunnel or above the tank for instance) were mostly without this extra layer of protection.

Look onto the homepagee of Brian Beters (motoringinvestments.com) where he presents the nicest survivors or very highly accurately restored Pagodas and how it looks there.

If your car's body has already been painted - including the underbody,
undercarriage wax on top of it is the least you should use.

I don't provide any recommendation....,
ask 10 people for their best advice which product(s) to use - and you will receive at least 12 advices.

Good luck & keep us updated

... and pictures, of course!

A.

[stickandrudderman]

I use a two part underseal that can be coloured. I'm getting to the point where I'm about to do this on the 250 shell rebuild featured on another thread and I can't decide whether to do the underside all body colour (red) or something along the lines of the original beige with red overspray in the arches.

[mbzse]

.../... I can't decide whether to do the underside all body colour (red) or something along the lines of the original beige with red overspray in the arches

Well Colin you know my take - finish the SL the way it came from the Factory     Base primer and overspray.
Pictures showing the "Holy Grail" 280 SL and others on the MotoringInvestments old webpage to serve as pattern.

[Peter h]

Two pictures more 68er original silver.
Peter

[Shvegel]

Well,  believe it or not when it came time to undercoat my shell I bought at least 6 different products and 3 different application guns.  After many rounds of trial and error I settled on U-pol Raptor pickup truck bed liner.  It is a 2 part tintable material that the texture of is spot on but also is just gloss enough to make it easy to clean.  The nice thing abaout a catalysed product is you get what you spray as opposed to an air dry material that shrinks and smooths out as it dries.

Application was with a Sata HRS gun which has interchangeable nozzles.  By accident I found no nozzle at all yielded the best result. Look the gun up online and in Europe you can buy a knockoff much cheaper.  I usled a small 19mm paint brush with the bristles cut down to 19mm or so to brush the areas around the front rails and around the large rear body plugs as original.

Paint overspray under car is intentional.
Body color where it would have drifted under the car and black from spraying the sills under the covers.

[stickandrudderman]

Tintable Raptor is exactly what I'll be using. I'm leaning towards beige underside.

[Shvegel]

Mine was a really light grey almost white.  I ground down an original sample to fresh underseal and matched that.