I have a 1972 1.7 that I’m restoring. One of the areas that I can’t find any information on is how the door hinges were originally finished. Mine have been sprayed over several times and when I repaint I want it to look right.

Were the hinges painted to the same color of the car? What about the bolts and pins. We’re they painted or zinc/cadmium plated. I ran my bolts through my ultrasonic cleaner and it appears they are black underneath the layers of paint.

Does anyone have an original picture of how it was finished from the factory?

74 1.8 orig paint
think its same all years.

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originally they are painted in the same color of the car.
never saw zinc plated or different finishes.

br

Benno

Here are mine. Original and unmolested to my best recollection. Note zinc chromate bolts with 5F and 8.8 markings. Hinge bolts in opposing directions. Same on passenger side. Mid-early 74 1.8. Original owner.
Bolt head scratches do show signs of use.
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I’ve only seen painted.

Probably mine have been changed out then. Will use touch up paint to get back to correct original.

I believe so. 911’s are the same. Painted door hinges and hardware to hold on front fenders. When you see shiny hardware, you know it’s been changed.

sh#t

thats fascinating.

@StarBear has had his car since ground zero.

i only had mine since 89.
i don't think mine got fooled with before i got it.
i had the right hand door off to do rhd conversion but lhd door stayed on.
which is why i photographed lh door.
i've never touched it. and the bolts have never been moved.
and the paint is factory.

is this a case of the factory did it different ways?

???????

mysteries of the 914?

Oh, I may have changed them out many decades ago. Don’t recall doing so but will check my records. That was a long time ago, probably during the late 70s or early 80s, of which I recall little.

This is from the 27k mile car on bat. I’m not saying I’m the final word on this, I’m not. I think painting the bolts was pretty standard for Porsche. I’ve seen a lot of 914’s so I believe what I’m saying is true. If it’s not, I stand corrected.

here is my karmann tag proper in focus.
she is no repaint.
or i am a better counterfeiter than characters on BAT.

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rhs door. we drove out the hinge pins to get the door off 30 years ago.
needed to manouver various beer guts in to work in pedal cluster transfer.
didnt move the hinge plates or bolts on the door jamb

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@StarBear may well be on to something.
his car is nov 73. mine is jan 74.

And remember - Hans seems to have worked on building my car; several abnormal things on it. A key might be the bolt markings. Are mine consistent with original or replacements?

My original 914-6 unmolested.

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I’m pretty sure they were all originally painted

I’ve owned a few and looked over a lot more
Pretty sure they were originally painted

wow

whats thet round plug above the K plate on a 6 all about.
not there on my sh%tbucket 1.8.

mysteries of the 914!

Looks like a Ziebart plug.

of course. forgive me. i live in a desert.

Thanks everyone

One thing that I can’t understand.. if the factory painted both hinge plates and the bolts then did they insert the unpainted hinge pin after. It seems they would have painted the doors off the car and then assembled it. If they did that I can’t believe the bolts would have been painted.

From what I have seen the area under the hinge is unpainted along with the pin so it stands to reason that, yeah, the mount plate was bolted to the car when they painted and then they put on the door with the pin. Weird though how they got the door aligned unless it was pretty standard across all the cars when they were new.

Production facilities have a lot of tools and techniques that individuals and small shops can’t duplicate.

I'll add to the mysteries... Factory -6, I've had it since 1977 and don't remember ever having the door off or touching up this area. Both pins are painted and it looks like the exposed shaft is also.

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Always only seen fully painted on original cars ...

Do you have green overspray on your rubber seal. It’s hard to tell but if you do, that area was touched up at one point.
My friend worked at a Mercedes dealer touching up and doing repairs to brand new cars that came in for sale. There were always enough new cars to keep him busy.

looking closely at blue six on previous page it looks like blue paint around edges of top of pin. as if it was painted all over but perhaps has had pins driven out or paint has come off tops of pins.

maybe the 6s were all painted originally?

i had a look back over stuff i have collected for 1.8 research.
some of examples were original condition cars.
all have the unpainted pin but painted bolts.

if the pins on mine had been painted there would be a trace somewhere.
nothing there.

mystery of the 914 again?


or......early cars (4s and 6s) got painted pins?

couple more 74s from research file.

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I’m convinced by the data and pics provided. Mine must have been changed out somewhere along the line of me not paying attention to this stuff. Heads definitely worked on. Will clean, prime, and paint back to original. Adding it to “the list” for getting ready for the New Hope PA show on the 15th.

Don't have a picture handy but I've had my early '71 since new and it has painted hinges and bolts.... and unfortunately some Ziebart plugs as well- I lived in Iowa and had to drive it in the winter for its first 4 years.
(but I did take the rockers off a couple times a winter to clean everything out!!)

That's my hunch. My '70 /4 had the original signal orange painted over the pins.

I know this is a bit of apples and oranges being a different model, factory, and time, but this video clearly shows the doors of 356s were on the chassis when color was sprayed at 13:36. If the 914 assembly was similar, the bolts and pins would have been painted.

Then later in the video, the doors are removed to assemble them and reinstalled later. Hypothetically, it might be possible for a set of bolts to get damaged or misplaced during that process and replaced with a set of unpainted bolts. Thus, the ultra-rare original car with unpainted bolts could leave the factory.

Yes, it is wild speculation but


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj7KTZ2MOgo

Wonder what a comparison to other Karmann cars (Gaia, 411/412?) might reveal. At this point I’ll go with mine have been replaced somewhere along the line but I didn’t pay attention. Will clean/prime/paint them.

The car I've been working on is pretty early, 987th car built, November 69 chassis number. I'm working on the doors. I stripped the paint using Citrus Strip which doesn't take the original paint off very well, and the is no orange on the pins.

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Some of the very early cars are quite different from even the later 70’s but then again, with the big speaker cutout in the door, who knows what else has been done to the doors on that car.

The doors appear to be original.

That door was painted 3 times after the factory — 1 time Tangerine, and then red and then a lighter red.

However, after stripping, the original orange paint was evident on the door bolts but not the pins which is consistent with rest of the cars shown in this thread (except the 6 that is highly suspect on account of it having overspray on the rubber seal).

One could say that any car could have had the doors taken off at the pins and the paint chipped off and then reinstalled. It's unlikely in my mind that plasma torch wielding car audio installers did anything to the door pins on this car

re factories, i think all the 912s in the 60s were built at karmann to the same level as later 914/6s. finished and trimmed apart from suspension and drive train. 912s would be a good place to look.

the blue six on previous page has blue paint around the edges of the hinge pin.
and there is SKL1's car.

definitely later 914s are not painted there.
there are enough real original condition cars to say that for certain.
its interesting re the earlier cars.
if they were when is the cut off?
original poster's question is for a 72. so if they were painted his might be in the zone.

got taught a lesson about using logic when it came to 1.8s and EC-A or B engines.
so shouldn't speculate.
but it might be a legacy of porsche involvement in having a 6 model.
something they wanted done. might co-incide with the end of the 6.
but you know. it could just as easily be a revision of assembly line procedure at karmann and have nothing to do with either VW or Porsche.

i had a high speed cruise through BAT on 912s.

hard to find an original paint one. most have been restored, repainted etc.

but i did find this and i think it looks like untouched original paint.

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another 74 from the 1.8 engine research.
44K mile 74 1.8 that sold a few years back on BAT and looked to be the real deal. matches mine.

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My 4/72 build date 72 was never painted (after the factory). The pins are unpainted, the door bolts are painted.

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The later cars (my 72) have pointed end door bolts but my 70 and 71 have flat end "regular" door hinge bolts. Possibly this could indicate the doors were taken off then put back on at the factory, Idk.

here is a 72 just up on BAT.
inners all looked to be factory original paint on it.


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had a good look in 912 section of BAT.
managed to find a couple of cars that looked in the main unrestored with original paint on inners.

bit hard to find as most 912s have been restored, in some cases several times over.

looks reasonably certain that karmann were painting hinge pins in the 60s when doing these porsche bodies.

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this one looks at first glance to be unpainted hinge pin, but close look you can see paint on edge of pin top.

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Ghias are hard to compare.
here is one that looks original. different kind of hinge.
definitely paint the fixing bolts. hard to see what goes on with hinge pin.

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411s and 412s were made at main VW plants - not a karmann product.

came across old ad for a 1970 914.

most of the paint looks original.
certainly all inners.

only one image is a clear shot of the hinges.
looks like the hinge pin could be painted in this early car.
hard to discern but think its white paint there not bare metal hinge pin.

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@SirAndy
might be good to shift this thread over to originality section of site?

Opening the image in a new tab on the site will show it unscaled, but it's still indiscernible.
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I would say it looks unpainted if I had to guess.

It's interesting that car's vin is 11,000 cars after mine, a fairly late 70, but the chassis number is 15 weeks before mine. It has the later driver seat tilt adjustment arm and the 2 section center tray.

even in 74 the karmann numbers wander around off kilter with the vin numbers.
however that does not sound quite right that there is such a discrepancy.
you must have a very very early 69 car @nathanxnathan . it must be within the first thousand cars built and it must have been started 15 weeks before august 69. which is interesting.
the one i found above is an august 70 car. right towards end of 70 MY production.

@wonkipop My car, the vin and chassis number are pretty close, both in November of 69.
Chassis #4839528 I work out to being the 28th car built on Wednesday Nov 25, 1969
The vin is 4702900987
I don't have a door sticker — it was removed during a respray I assume. The production numbers listed here on 914world go by actual year, saying 1543 4 cylinder cars were produced in 69, so my vin agrees with that, if it was #987. I think the production numbers here are based on vins, not chassis numbers?

The white car, I can't make out the production date on the door sticker, but with
vin 4702912026 that would make it the 12,026 — 11,000 cars later — pretty far on into 1970 for a completion date if there were about 22,000 1970 model year 4 cylinder cars.

The white car's chassis number is 3319577 which I think is August 11th, 1969. So it sat as a chassis for 10 months or so?

It seems like the chassis would have got painted, like they couldn't have left it around in bare metal that whole time. The Karmann badge is applied after paint so that seems logical that they create and mark the chassis with the number. Then the vin gets assigned once the whole car is assembled. I guess chassis numbers are what would be relevant here, rather than vins as it's a chassis question.

16,000 mile original 914-6Click to view attachment

Took the time/effort to clean, prime, and paint my nice shiny yellow zinc incorrect ones yesterday. Back to the past!

I’m thinking the factory aligned the doors before they were painted and then took the pins out and painted the cars with the doors off so that it was easier to access the area. Then once the paint dried they used unpainted pins to reassemble and the doors were already aligned so they didn’t need to touch the bolts.

i doubt very much the K number on the white car goes to august 69 and that it sat for 10 months. i would say its a late production car and the K number is indicating august 70.
unfortunately no vin sticker was available in the dealer photos to show that.

the numbers on 1970 MY cars are not 22,000. thats the production for the calendar year 1970. production was only around 13,000 for the 4s for MY 70. since its vin is up in the 12,000 range its about a 1000 from the end of 70 model. they built about 100 cars a day on average through most of the production run. so its a car 2 weeks from the end of 70 MY. k number makes it an early aug 1970 car. which is right. they usually took several weeks off sometime in or around august as a summer holiday and shut the factory down or slowed production down between the model year breaks.

the chassis number checks out. there is nothing odd about it.

what MY is that 914/6 @dr914 @autoatlanta ?