NOTO tow hitch paint

[Surveyor]

This may be a stupid question to my learned friends but I am looking at my FFR Land Rover and the body is matt, the NATO tow hitch is black gloss, I also have seen the part in red.

I am assuming black matt would be the correct colour for about 1983, can anyone confirm if I am correct

Thanks in advance

[Richard Farrant]

Chassis and tow hook was black

If the hook was red then that was a bit of b*llsh*t at the unit!

[johnwardle]

New ones come in Satin Black, red paint is usually to suggest danger.

[ruxy]

It may have changed  ?

A good few years ago , NATO pintles were being supplied to the MOD by D-B  in Red Oxide finish .  I understand the instructions were to leave them in Red Oxide - this was to make preparations for magnetic particle crack detection easier.

[Surveyor]

Thanks, i can see flecks of red and yellow, as the pintle is jammed going to take this opportunity to strip the paint off and get it free, 

[Surveyor]

Started stripping the paint, and found what looks like brown gloss under the black, think it is red oxide is the base. 

Anyone any clue why the brown, the vehicle is direct from MoD so its not that a private owner has done it

Edited July 31, 2021 by Surveyor

[67burwood]

The majority I’ve seen are red oxide, is there any desert colour paint anywhere on the vehicle? Possible first gulf war??? Desert sand and brown camo!!

Edited July 31, 2021 by 67burwood

[Surveyor]

The vehicle doesn't appear to have any that i can find, but saying that maybe the pintle was transferred from a vehicle which was.

The puzzle is the paint does look gloss, I thought Gulf would be a matt paint

[67burwood]

From your picture it looks like the red is on top of the brown, very strange 🤔

[Surveyor]

Yes hadn't spotted that, the other strange part is that's the only bit I can find

[ruxy]

Break into / under the skin of  285  NATO Green , you will see pink, brown and the base is often grey - just how the IRR components / pigments settle out.

[Surveyor]

That reminds me of a job i was involved in the spry paint landed on car but looking at it the colour was not the same as being sprayed, as you say its the mix

 

Thanks Ruxy and all, always learning on here, count it as CPD for work

[ruxy]

Mixing a gallon can of any type takes a long time (your average squaddie would soon get bored)   ,  household emulsion , garage floor paint , vehicle paints  -  I use wood battens approx. 2"x 3/16" x  18" long , sometimes I use a fancy spiral stirrer in a Makita  0 to 500rpm drill , even this can't be trusted so I still use a batten (I cut them on my circular saw). IMHO - I very much doubt if IRR brush finish was correctly prepared , probably more chance of the spray finish getting a proper stirr.

[Ex-boy]

Back to the use of red paint on tow hitches, I have just been looking at the Electric conversions thread in the MV Chatter section and there is a photo of a (very non-standard) Scammell with a red front hitch. As ex-REME, it was something that I saw often on a variety of vehicles.

[ruxy]

Specifically with Series / early Defender Land Rovers in Army service - can't say I have observed gloss red paint on pintles.  I have LWT   55KB92 which is Ex-RM winterized and just as it was demob - the pintle latch only is painted gloss red.

[ploughman]

My 1978 CL Series 3  has a gloss red tow hook.

From before I acquired it.

If I get to repaint the vehicle it will probably remain red as is.unless it can be prooved what it should be.

[ruxy]

Just had a look in the  Dixon-Bate  pintle Dept.  (unissued).  I will not bore you with rivet-counter differences / dating - going by the penultimate safety clip  - I would guess these are from abt. the end of the last century. The newest nappy-pin , black with black lanyard must be a D-B  Millenium upgrade.

[10FM68]

3 hours ago, ploughman said:

My 1978 CL Series 3  has a gloss red tow hook.

From before I acquired it.

If I get to repaint the vehicle it will probably remain red as is.unless it can be proved what it should be.

This topic is forever coming up.  Lots of units painted their towing pintles bright red - as they did towing eyes, wheel nuts, makers name badges and all sorts of other details.  But, by rights they ought not to have done (apart from securing nuts on split rims).  It was done to make things look a bit smarter, because the guy with the tin of paint was bored and for a host of other reasons.  Most commonly, though the towing hitches were left in their original state: usually black, sometimes red lead and occasionally sprayed the same as the rest of the vehicle.  Sappers were also quite keen on white paint back in the 80s with quite a few vehicles having towing and lifting eyes painted white and white circles appearing round lifting holes - whether that habit continued for long, though, I have no idea.  So, best advice?  Clean it off and give it a light spray of gloss black.

[ruxy]

What goes around comes around  :-

 

 

ISTR  there is a  AESP  covering instructions.

[OzH]

I was in BAOR in the 80s and all our tow hooks were painted green or black along with the rest of the vehicle camouflage with the exception to the inside of the hook which was "lightly greased", same for the tow eye of any of our trailers.

I would think the red oxide is the factory colour, the other colours would be as it has gone through usage/paint jobs. Bear in mind, we would paint our trucks and land rovers regularly for various inspections etc so the black green colour demarcation would change over time.

I also remember taking land rovers on a skiing expeditions or adventure training where we had to "civilianise" them. To do that we would pop down to the paint store and see what they had, I painted land rovers all yellow and all red, but we soon realised getting them back to green and black post exercise took a lot of effort so we then just went for an all over matt black look!

No paint booths, spray guns or anything fancy like that, just brushes and petrol to thin the paint... normally having a fag at the same time..!

[ruxy]

ISTR  noting red-oxide only finish on new Wolf XD  & that would be 1994 (I was in the Solihull works IIRC 1993 or just possibly '94 - I remember this well because I spent a bit of time close exam. of a pair of Perentie sent over from Oz for Land Rover engineers to scrutinize) ,  I queried this red oxide only finish to D-B pintles ,and was told about keeping just sufficient paint on to stop corrosion & to aid magnetic particle crack testing.   I think the red gloss crept in from here - from the point that they left the Solihull factory in red.   I think I had only prior seen red on divided rim nuts, narrow-track Sankey handbrake release was also very common , I think some  w.t. Sankey had the hitch rings painted red- the rest would be just typical regimental bull$hit.   At the time - my camera was a Praktica  MTL4 (quite a bulky SLR)  although I did have a Minox normally in my VSTOL  r/c model aircraft  (modified  wing ,Shuco Hegi Snoopey) ,  I never carried it (they would think I was a industrial spy)  , in my employment I had access to many MOD establishments - so obviously I never carried a camera.

[Ex-boy]

Another example of a red hitch on the Saracen for sale.

[Surveyor]

It looks like i am going to have to strip the thing down to free it, just trying to work out the best way to get the washers off holding the pins in. Plenty of layers of paint on it

[Ex-boy]

Normally you would use a pair of circlip  pliers, but a flat-bladed screwdriver in the gap between the pin and clip when twisted should pull one leg clear, then repeat for the other. Alternatively, a flat piece of steel gently hammered against the ends of the clip should push it clear.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Ex-boy
Misspelling

[Surveyor]

1 hour ago, Ex-boy said:

Normally you would use a pair of circlip  pliers, but a flat-bladed screwdriver in the gap between the pin and clip when twisted should pull one leg clear, then repeat for the other. Alternatively, a flat piece of steel gently hammered against the ends of the clip should push it clear.

Many thanks,  I couldn't see the holes in the picture above and at the moment to much paint on the actual part couldn't see the holes for the pliers, it does make sense to me now you have mentioned it, as always the big thing is learning.