Painting the underbelly

I know this sounds like a silly question, but I"m having a difficult time getting a good topcoat coverage shooting up underneath the tractor. I"m using a HVLP turbine gun. The pickup tube inside the cup is angled toward the front, so likely that"s why I"m not getting paint when I hold the gun upwards and parallel to the ground. I figure I might try to loosen the pickup tube and rotate it 90 degrees toward the rear. Does anyone else have this problem?

That's not a silly question at all. It's a common problem with suction feed guns. You can improve the situation to the maximum by orienting the angled pick-up tube to the rear as you mention. You also want to make sure that the vent hole in the cup cap (cover) is oriented towards the front, just opposite from the angled pick-up tube. Be advised that both of these are just the opposite from what you'd want when painting a car hood, roof or trunk, where the gun is pointing down rather than up. So plan accordingly before you spray the top surfaces or you'll either run out of paint or drip out the vent hole onto your fresh paint - or both. You can achieve the steepest angle (up or down) by having more paint in the cup. In other words, try doing the bottom first in your painting sequence. I think that would be the best place to start anyway since there would be less chance on getting overspray on already covered upper surfaces where it would be more noticeable. The best equipment for spraying out-of-position like that is a pressure fed gun using a remote cup or, lacking that, a gravity fed gun using a "plastic baggie" in the cup, if available for the gun.

Rod

Boy do I want to get this 340 painted and down off the blocks! Been way too long (as are all my projects . . . )