90 feet long
Holds 50,000 gallons
240 volt electrical charge
An original Ford Motor Company "better idea", the electrified
Red Paint River was a unique way to guard against automotive rust back
in the sixties and seventies. Car bodies were placed on a specially-designed
hoist and then lowered into a tank containing the liquid. The tank, or
"river" was 90 feet long and contained 50,000 gallons of red
ionized primer paint, which had a negative charge.
But just dunking the car bodies in the primer wasn't good enough for the
quality control folks at Ford. So Ford ran 240 volts of electricity through
the car bodies, making them positively charged. This caused a reaction
between the two components, and fused the negatively charged primer to
the positively charged car body. Essentially the paint and the car bodies
became one.
The outcome was a car that resisted rust much longer than one without this
process.
Classic car collectors today perhaps have better chemicals to use than
were available 40 years ago, such as Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator, POR15,
Rust Bullet, etc., but the original effort put into the manufacturing process
to prevent rust was admirable.
AUTO BREVITY is a single-topic, brief look into automotive history from
Automotive Mileposts.
