Seam Sealer After Paint?

Hi guys, I don't remember ever noticing this before on other Mopars. My Cuda has the usual black tar like sealer around the seams on the floor pans and when I was breaking chunks of it off, I saw raw steel and it appears this tar like crap was painted over when the floor pans were dusted with color. Now when I scraped this same tar like sealer off up between the shock access plates (near the trunk) there is gleaming red original paint underneath. So did the guys on the line apply this stuff more than once before and after color coat? Here's a few pics. Thanks for any insight. Eddie

Up between shock access plates.

Before.........

Doesn't appear to be the case on my AAR. I always thought all seam sealing was done prior to paint also. Everything looks correct on the rest of the car except for this one area.

This interior picture of my 1970 Duster 340 shows black seam sealer that must have been applied after paint. The front floor pan sealer was applied prior to paint.

Normally it's all before paint but this was probably a low totem pole type job

It looks to me like there are two different types of application. All the seams look to be done with a gun and a putty knife while others are slapped on with a brush. So maybe the seams are done before paint and the others are done after.

I've seen evidence of both. Here are a few pictures of the interior disassembly of my original paint Hamtramck built T/A. You can see the floor seam at the firewall was done prior to paint and the rest done after.

Those are great pics!!! Thanks for posting. I think I can still see evidence of over spray on your floor pan tar sealer though which would indicate it was there already during the paint process. If you look at my first set of pics you can see the same thing on mine. Red over spray on the black sealer. When I chip away at it, there's bare steel under it on the floor pans which tells me it was applied before painting. On metallic colors, that black sealer seams to hide the oversparay very well. On the white sealer it shows up perfectly. I'm wondering since mine wasn't sealed before painting between the shock access plugs in the trunk, are they all done this way? Has anyone else seen evidence of this on theirs? Should we be applying that heavy black tar between the shock access holes after paint to look correct? I'm gonna take an even closer look and more photos today. On a side note, does anyone reproduce those little version floor pan plugs that are olive green? Mine say Tinnerman on them. One is rusted badly. Eddie

I'm wondering if maybe the interior got painted at one station, moved down the line and got the seam sealer then on to the exterior paint station. That would explain the overspray.

Some sealer was done prior to paint and some was not....

Agreed. Ok, here's my findings today on my 70 AAR Cuda. Upon very close inspection and some careful cleaning, the black tar like slop sealer on the floor pans was applied after primer but before color coat. What I originally thought was bare steel underneath the missing chunks was in fact darker grey primer or possibly dip primer. My flash makes it look light colored. I thought it was steel until I looked for the heat marks from the welds and didn't see any. So I rubbed thinner on areas to clean things up and noticed that its primer under the tar. This is pretty interesting because the white firm sealers on the car were done directly over the steel then went through all the primer steps afterward. It appears to me that after the color coat was finished, they applied more of the tar like sealer in the trunk up between the shock access holes. Pretty neat detail that I will surely document and reproduce....as ugly as it is.

close ups. Yes I do agree. Some was done before color and some after. Looks like some was actually done before any primers, some after primers and a small amount after color coat. Very cool.

What's funny is if you look very very close at the pics I posted of the seam at the rear of the center tunnel, there is a tiny amount of Rallye Red color coat over spray on top of that primer. this almost makes me believe that this tar like sealer was being applied very close to or during the paint process on the line. Hmmm

You can see the sealer between the rear shock towers in this picture. The second picture is after restoration.

Very very nice. Thanks for posting pics.