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MG MG Y Type - Paint code?

I plan to repaint my wheels soon. The car will need it eventually but I don't have the funds just yet. What can I tell the paint shop to make sure I get the proper color, and so that I can match it later? The wheels are the same color as the side of the car which is green.

The car is YB 1547. There is a picture here: http://www.twosims.com/hobby/mg/mgyb/mgyb8.jpg
Steve Simmons

Steve,

My Y-wheels need repainting too, and as my Y is an unoriginal grey I informed at the paint-shop what they could do for me. They offer two solutions:

One: The color can be "scanned" with an "spectrummeter" (I don't know if thats the correct English term but it'll have to do!) the match may not be perfect, but it is easy to store the formula to reproduce the same match over and over again.

Two: An "old hand with a good eye" mixes an exact (...) match and has to do that every time again when more paint is needed.

As your YB has been repainted in the past (on the factory two-tones only the wings (and wheels?) differ in color from the body, the doors are painted in one color) chances are that the paint is also a non-original color, so you also have to ask the paintshop to make up their own formula?
Willem van der Veer

Gentlemen

If you look under the Technical Centre you will find an entire page (a big one!) devoted to paint and paint codes. Although the colours are for guides and cannot be taken as official (due to the multifarious ways different video cards, browsers and monitors interpret the same colours!

You should be able to quote any of the manufacturer's codes as given and get a good match if your car is an original colour. Alternately, since you are going for a repaint, clean and polish an area up, and knock a chip off, stick it onto a piece of card (dark card if it is a light colour, light card if a dark card tehn you have a sample you can show.

I would be wary of using a scanner and computers to evaluate a match!

Paul
Paul Barrow

The best way to get the Colour is to take the Car or the wheel (you need more than a chip of paint)to a paint supplier and go throw there Colour Chips some suppliers have paint scanners but there will be an extra charge for this and a Y wont go in one!I would look at British Racing Green fist it looks like it.
John
John

Thanks guys. Is it true that my paint job is not the way the factory did it? Is it definately a respray? There is one spot in the rear of the car which looks like a little bodywork was done, but otherwise the paint seems original or at least old. Looks like the old oil paint they used way back when.
Steve Simmons

Steve

By the "old oil paint" do you mean synthetic? If so, then it has definitely been resprayed as the factory would have used celly (cannot spell cellulose at his time in the morning!) paint.

If you are planning a respray it will have to be a complete bare metal strip down as painting over the top of synthetic will just sag all over the place.

Synthetic paint is horrible stuff to get off - I know, I had to remove several layers when I did Y 5270!

Paul
Paul Barrow

Steve,

I am 99% sure about the non-original (but very nice!) colour-combination on your car.

from page 207 of "Let ther be Y's":
"vii. On the two-tone cars, the complete body, all valances, bonnet, bootlid and sparewheel compartment lid where finished in the light colour. ONLY the mudguards and the running boards (and the centres of the wheels, from about June 1947) were finished in the darker colour."

So the factory made a car two-tone mainly by just bolting on a set of different coloured wings and runningboards.
Maybe your car was originaly black and the green was added later? That would explain the original look of the (black) paint?
Willem van der Veer

Hmmm. I suppose it's a respray then. I'll have to chip off a bit to see if there is any other color under it. The wheels are flaking apart terribly and show bright orange underneath which I can only guess was a primer. At least now I don't have to worry so much about matching the color. I'll probably just pick a new paint code to keep things simple.
Steve Simmons

Steve

Just checked my copy of Lawson's Y-Type Saloons and Tourers. It seems to confirm Willem's comments on the 2-tone style. He does have one picture, on page 26, of a non original "Cream and Cracker" finish in the same style as your car. There is a list of the original exterior and upholstery colors on page 22.

I also have a pictures of 2 Y types that appear to be the 2-tone style of your car. Will send it to you off line.

Unless there are lots of layers of paint I very much doubt that your paint is original. When I repainted my YT in the mid-60s I found 7 separate colors/layers of paint.

Larry
Larry Hallanger

No offense to anyone of course, but looking at the two styles of paint, I think the "unoriginal" one looks far better! I guess I bought the right YB, eh? :D
Steve Simmons

This thread was discussed between 20/01/2004 and 23/01/2004

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