Topic: Window adjustment plate

[Anghelrestorations]

I heard from someone who went to a recent judged event where he was told that ALL 1970 Mustangs had the window adjustment plate zinc or silver and should not be body color.  From everything I have ever seen I dont think that is accurate, so wondering what others have seen on original unpainted cars.  Most common I have seen is they are painted body color - see below.   

Also found this post where Jeff gives examples of everything but silver. 
https://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=25022.msg155467#msg155467



20241015_095356 by Marcus Anghel, on Flickr

[Bob Gaines]

Typically body color.

[hopey]

I heard from someone who went to a recent judged event where he was told that ALL 1970 Mustangs had the window adjustment plate zinc or silver and should not be body color.  From everything I have ever seen I dont think that is accurate, so wondering what others have seen on original unpainted cars.  Most common I have seen is they are painted body color - see below.   

Body color.

Marcus / Bob, I guess as always - it depends

As discussed a couple of days ago on the Boss forum with Jeff S the plates were often laid on top of the cowl during paint to receive body color. They were then meant to be installed with the paint facing out. Not all were, sometimes they were installed reversed paint side in showing the original plating outwards.

Also Jeff documented in another discussion where there were periods of time where they did not appear to be painted at Dearborn in 1970 but instead were silver looking finish. Unfortunately it does not have the same title as the NJ discussion so it is not easily found but has the same type of data and photographic evidence. Here it is.

https://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=27699.msg169503#msg169503

[Bob Gaines]

Marcus / Bob, I guess as always - it depends

As discussed a couple of days ago on the Boss forum with Jeff S the plates were often laid on top of the cowl during paint to receive body color. They were then meant to be installed with the paint facing out. Not all were, sometimes they were installed reversed paint side in showing the original plating outwards.

Also Jeff documented in another discussion where there were periods of time where they did not appear to be painted at Dearborn in 1970 but instead were silver looking finish. Unfortunately it does not have the same title as the NJ discussion so it is not easily found but has the same type of data and photographic evidence. Here it is.

https://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=27699.msg169503#msg169503

I suppose "ALL 1970 Mustangs had the window adjustment plate zinc or silver and should not be body color" is clearly a incorrect statement. I will amend my statement to include the word "typically" in front of body color given by observation that better describes what happened more often based on mine and others observations. They certainly blend in better painted which I assume was the reasoning for painting them in the first place. 

[J_Speegle]

I heard from someone who went to a recent judged event where he was told that ALL 1970 Mustangs had the window adjustment plate zinc or silver and should not be body color.

Guessing this was a MCA judging event but really doesn't matter. Very apparent that the person is mistaken and since they lumped all the plants together in the statement that may indicate how deep his or her investigation and understanding goes.
   

Also found this post where Jeff gives examples of everything but silver. 

Of course that was just a look and discussion on NJ built cars 


I've seen on unrestored cars the following Some much more than others depending on plant procedures

Body painted (on one side) plates mounted so that the body color is visible
Body painted (on one side) plates mounted so that the body color is visible
Black or bare finish face visible
Silver plate face visible One some - like San Jose - they appear to be painted silver not zinc plated

As mentioned in another thread I believe some of the painted plates may have been missed (placed in a location during painting where the painter missed) may explain some of the non-body color ones or if the worker dropped the body color plate during installation they may have had a tub of prepainted (body color) plates available so that they could quickly replace the dropped one to keep things on the line moving.  This is likely IMO in those cases where we find one plat with no body color and the rest (1 or 3) finished with body color.

Hope posting examples from all plants in one thread gets confusing and generate cross talk. If it does may separate those discussions out by plant as usual

So for 70 San Jose built cars all I found so far is non-body color plates on unrestored cars



Looked at my collection of NJ build unrestored cars and again came up with no examples with what appeared to be silver finish. Found just the typical and sort of expected body color paint finish and a few where they were rusty. Not sure if this indicates bare steel, thin coat of paint (body color or other wise.



And lastly 70 Dearborn examples

From an earlier thread. Vast majority found with body colored paint. Few silver and possibly black paint



Today's examples since your focusing on silver ones it seems I've left out all the body colored examples but did include (at the far right) the unpainted ones it appears. May be able to establish a pattern if have more time and its important at this time




Hope this helps

[Anghelrestorations]

Ok thanks for the input...sounds like we are all in agreement.  Body color is common and there is other variations where the plate does not have body color on it.  Should not be a hard rule one way or another.

hopey - I also checked on the Boss forum and did not see any posting or discussion on this. 

[JohnSlack]

Ok thanks for the input...sounds like we are all in agreement.  Body color is common and there is other variations where the plate does not have body color on it.  Should not be a hard rule one way or another.

hopey - I also checked on the Boss forum and did not see any posting or discussion on this.

Marcus,
I just checked as well, I was involved in that conversation. The conversation started in regards to my point that my 1969 1/2 BOSS 302 Calypso Coral car had black door stop plates, even though I had pictures of the CC outlines on the cowl panel.

I had my original plates and careful inspection by carefully sanding the latest of paint off of them showed a gloss black coating on them with no Calypso Coral. Then the conversation went to 1970.


John

[J_Speegle]

Ok thanks for the input...sounds like we are all in agreement.  Body color is common and there is other variations where the plate does not have body color on it.  Should not be a hard rule one way or another.

Would not agree with the bolded statement above. Don't believe at this time its correct. That would apply to Dearborn and NJ built cars but not San Jose

As far as judging you could for 1970's any of the three or four finishes. If you don't list them but list them it would open the door to any finish. List body color for those two plants and allow, during the introduction about anything different or unusual about that particular car, simply ask for documentation - a picture - of the car being presented. Or list for 70 Dearborn and NJ were typically body color then follow with the San Jose description. In this way your helping those that are restoring cars but started with a car that had been restored before or no evidence remained. If you don't then anyone building is just as likely to choose to paint theirs a different color even though their car likely was body color.  Sometimes owners, if given the option, will what is allow but not correct for their car simply to make things easier or to stand out and be different. One example would be all the 69-70 Dearborn cars that are built and shown with red oxide undercarriages. The answer, when asked about the color typically respond that even though their cars were not painted that color they made that choice because the rules said they could without deduction. Had two such examples last week

That's the challenge of trying to cover all the bases in such short spaces on the sheets or you need to assemble a resource guide that the judging sheets could refer to in a short single few words.  Been discuss over and over again since the 80's in MCA

[specialed]

I think in 70 ford started painting  some of them silver so 1 size fits all instead of trying to get the colors matched to the body. I have seen 69 cars with the wrong color plates installed on the car maybe the originals got lost or forgottened to be placed on car when painted. Most of the time i see these plates on cowl area when painted and on verts painted on top of the rear wheelhouses since coupes and verts have 4 plates . My purple  and yellow shelby vert had all 4 painted on top of the staggered shock area in trunk.

[Anghelrestorations]

I'm posting here because last weekend at French Lick there was points taken off for this "Outer window stop plate - painted, should be bare". 
I think that's a mistake, unless there is different criteria at that show? 

[jwc66k]

I love those plates. I use one of the larger ones to mount and hold a metal mirror to a florescent light fixture angled just right so I can see my humming bird feeder (see picture) located just outside my computer room (and it's just about time to refill the feeder). I used four of the smaller ones to attach the cover of my wall mounted gas heater to the wall (since replaced with some Home Depot 2 x 5 inch flat plates).
Oh. In keeping with paint color question, these plates were removed from wrecked Mustangs so I can't comment on original body paint matches, except to say: 1: They were painted; 2. I removed the paint; 3. Most of the wrecked Mustangs I get parts from, were built in San Jose.
Jim

[hopey]

hopey - I also checked on the Boss forum and did not see any posting or discussion on this.

Marcus it was a discussion on cowl blackout and as a sidebar when the window stop plates were actually painted. I can understand aesthetically why they painted them body color but from a production and engineering point of view it made no difference and possibly complicated the assembly process. I can only imagine how many were dropped or lost during the process.

From what Jeff has posted (VIN data and body color, silver or black) it looks to me as a summary of the current data presented:-

Dearborn:- Early 1970 model year production were body color but sometime around early December 1969 they switched to being predominantly silver.

San Jose was silver.

Metuchen was body color and switched to being black during October 1969

[Anghelrestorations]

hopey - yes, I see all that data and its good to have that, I still have a problem saying that they MUST be body color or MUST be silver during any time.  I think we can say words like typical and normally, but in a judged event I cant see that being a black and white answer.  Ive seen original cars with one door being painted and the other side unpainted (silver) so I dont think assembly line workers were that consistent.   

[hopey]

hopey - yes, I see all that data and its good to have that, I still have a problem saying that they MUST be body color or MUST be silver during any time.  I think we can say words like typical and normally, but in a judged event I cant see that being a black and white answer.  Ive seen original cars with one door being painted and the other side unpainted (silver) so I dont think assembly line workers were that consistent.

Completely agree you cannot be 100% definitive and the absolute judging criteria applied to this item at French Lick is disproven by the existing data- unless it was a San Jose build.

But from a process engineering viewpoint- the mixed plates indicate issues with the process- possibly dropped or lost when being painted. The current data sample then shows none were painted body color on later builds so I do wonder if there was a change in the process at Dearborn/Metuchen. Eliminate the body color painting to eliminate the error and speed up the line.

More data and observations would either confirm or disprove that hypothesis.

[Bob Gaines]

Since both 69 and 70 share window adjustment plates to eliminate lumping 69 and 70 all together what is the consensicious on 69 window adjustment plates plant to plant? For example Dearborn cars of 69 are my particular field of interest and those were typically painted I have found.