When your going to paint Z/28 stripes on your Camaro remove the cowl panel and paint the color of the stripe through out the wiper area under the cowl. I wouldn't have thought of this untill I started painting my 68 Z and noticed that whole area was painted white like the stripes. When the car is assembled and you look through the gills of the cowl you won't see overspray from the stripes on the car color.
Roger

The top of the cowl should be white (with white stripes). The "trough" area, where the wiper linkage is, should be blacked out.

John, are you sure on that? I only have my car for a referance and haven't seen any other original paint Z/28's to back up my statement.
So your saying that all striped cars had blacked out wiper troughs?

The way I understand it, the wiper linkage area was "supposed" to be blacked out. However, this was a hap-hazard, sloppy process and some cars may not have received this treatment. The purpose was to keep the black wiper linkage from showing through. If your car still has the original paint, you should be able to tell if it was black or not with a little sanding. The order of colors from bare metal should be; primer-body color-stripe color-black (if it was applied).

Here's a link about the cowl panel area. From what I understand, the wiper area was blacked out if the car didnt have the hood stripes and had overspray of the stripe color if it had the stripes.

Cowl Paint thread (http://www.camaros.net/cgi-bin/forum/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=004016)

Just set back and think about how the car was put together. The wiper linkage was in place when the cowl panel was set it place. Most of the time the panel was put on while the pant was still wet GM did not take the time to cover the Wiper linkage. I have worked a lot of Z/28 cars and billet top show cars and not one have I seen with White strips was the linkage not panted. There was a brown car one E-Bay not long ago that was sappiest to be an untouched car with white strips and it had the over spray and the linkage was white.

Tim
Check out the posts by JohnZ in the above thread. The process, as explained by him, would account for the wet paint marks on top of the cowl. The wiper linkage wasn't installed by Fischer Body. It was installed later on by Chevrolet after the body was painted.

Any Z/28 with body color or stripe color overspray on the wiper linkage has been repainted or repaired since it was built; the wiper linkage was installed by Chevrolet, many hours after the body and cowl vent panel were painted and the cowl plenum area was blacked-out in the Fisher Body Paint Shop.
graemlins/beers.gif

As far as "all", and "everyone ever built" had black wiper troughs.......I'm not buying it. My dark green 68 w/ white strips had a white wiper trough. I bought it used in 1981 with original paint. Well, I say it was original cause it was real faded, cracked finish that I striped to bare steel with minimal stripper required. No dents, no bondo, lotza rust.I made patterns off the original stripes including the rear trunk stripe ending under the rear spoiler. The car had not been modified so I beleive I was the first to pull the cowl and see all the white paint. Not overspary but sprayed white. I was working at the time for a company that restored/rebuilt 67-69 Camaros and I had repainted over 35 Camaros while working there. When I pulled my Z/28 apart for paint I saw the white wiper trough.
Now a previous owner could have done this but what do you think the chances of that are?
What I do like about it is when your admiring the stripes it doesn't have differant colors behind the cowl grill to draw you eyes to unsightly details. I don't remember if the wiper linkage was painted or not.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. tongue.gif
Roger

Roger;

Is your car a 'LOS' build?

I beleive it's a NOR.

I asked because I have worked on two original Z's that are 'LOS' cars, w/white stripes, that the area below the cowl and the wiper arm recess areas were painted white - not black or body color. The wiper arms were painted(?) a semi-gloss black and had no overspray. The wiper pivots were metal color (aluminum?). Don't know if it was a LOS/NOR thing or just a 'co-inky-dink', but the NOR car I worked on the wiper recess was painted(?) a dull black.

Where's MacNeish when you need him? :D

I can't speak to '67 or '68, but the Fisher Body paint spec for 69's called for the cowl plenum area to be blacked out; the plants may have "cheated" on some dark colors or just flat not done it on some others, but the spec was to black out all of them. My untouched original NOR 02D '69Z (Fathom Green, white stripes) has the cowl plenum area (sloppily) blacked out as it was supposed to be done. The wiper linkage was installed later, in the Chevrolet side of the plant, about 500 cars past the end of the Paint Shop, and should show nothing other than the original supplier-applied black paint on the link rods. graemlins/thumbsup.gif