Can someone educate me on how the cars were painted back at the factory in 1963? Is the method similar to later years, or were there significant changes? What was bolted to the body at different stages (battery tray etc.) and were all the parts that were bolted to the body primered (trunk, hood, fenders) or maybe bare steel (to be primered with the rest of the car)?

Not the exact answer to you question but some good info.

http://www.wwnboa.org/patik.htm


Assembly of the body shell begins by laying the sub-assembled passenger compartment floor and forward frame rails and the sub-assembled trunk floor and frame rails onto a moving floor-level "truck" fixture. To either side of this floor pan fixture are secured (a short distance later) massive, hanging, moving fixtures called "sidegates." They locate to the floor pan assemblies the body side components: lower sills, cowl sides, "A" pillars, roof rails, and quarter panels.

Body parts are manually welded. Several hundred huge, pincher-type spot welders and their many cooling lines hang from the ceiling in the Metal Shop, giving it the appearance of an industrial rain forest. The high heat of the welders is dissipated by piped-in water to each unit, and their bulk is made more maneuverable by using their transformers as counterbalances.

In essence, every part of the body that will be color-coated is permanently attached in Body-in-White. Mating surfaces are coated with a grey, zinc-rich weld-through primer prior to spot weld assembly (in corrosion-prone areas). To prevent rust-out of bolted-on mated areas like door hinges-to-cowl, and fenders-to-inner fenders, a dark green zinc chromate primer is manually brushed onto each of these mating surfaces before body assembly.

See the page at http://www.hamtramck-historical.com/imag...atures_0003.jpg for some details.

Also see the next page - http://www.hamtramck-historical.com/imag...atures_0004.jpg