As the title asks....

The half cowl for my ‘78 appears to be original (old) but it doesn’t have a PD logo or part numbers on it. Is this normal? Also, someone (poorly) repainted it at some point.



Topside





Underside

 

Why do you ask?

 

I think he's asking because he's probably seen other early cowl (half) covers that do have a part number embossed in them. All four of the '78s that I have dealt with have the part number on them but I have seen other '78s where there is no visible number. Not sure whether it was OEM supplier differences, or the # was added later in the run, or ???






Without:

 

I guess my question should have been, what the heck difference does it make?

 

I'm not sure Doug's is from a 78. Mine is much more robust and feels like it is made out of bakelite or something similar. It is pretty heavy duty, and original. The one posted at the beginning looks like the later flimsy ones.

 

Some of it is purely out of curiosity. Some of it is to get a better handle on the originality of the car.....or more accurately, which specific parts aren't original or true-to-original.

I'm also not so sure that I want to spend the time to clean mine up if it isn't original. It might be a more worthwhile effort to find an early one instead.

 

Well I didn’t have much else to do in these days of quarantine and such, so I tested some CitriStrip on the piece to see how it would react with the paint and plastic. It actually did a fantastic job and did zero damage to the plastic. I’m kinda shocked that this old plastic didn’t react at all, even after forgetting about it at one point as the stripper dwelled for nearly an hour.

I found multiple layers of paint of varying quality/thickness. There was some very hard paint in a few areas and it appeared to have an almost Bakelite-type of consistency and appearance. It took multiple applications to strip those areas.

Is it possible that some early pieces were painted from the factory? @linderpat is the one on BluMaxx possibly painted or coated?

 

I'll pull it and look this weekend, but I do not believe it was.

 

I looked on my 78 and there is no part number on that flimsy plastic cowl cover.

 

Ok, here are a couple of shots of mine. No part number, but it is original to the car. It is also thinner than I recalled, but still feels stiffer than the full length ones from my other cars. Also, it is not painted. Was yours really painted Doug?

 

Thanks gents!

Mine was indeed painted, but only on portions....some parts were, some parts weren’t and of varying thickness in the parts that were. It’s was enough that it made me question as to why someone would do it in the first place or if the factory had an initial coating on it and someone tried to “correct” that by repainting it a second or third enough.

@linderpat I think your picture confirms to me that mine is original. I have the same casting lines (almost look like stretch marks) on my mine as yours has. I think I’ll be selling the aftermarket full-length cover now since this one has cleaned up so nicely.