1958 hood latches painted or not

[Thomas H.]

I get very confused when I read that the hood latches (firewall side) were painted black during the black out process but see Flighted cars with silver / natural latches.

Now today I saw pictures of a car with both NCRS and Bloomington accolades and the hood latches on that car were only half painted black and the other half were natural. So I have now seen fully painted, half painted and not painted on judged cars.

In another month or so I will be installing the hood latches on my 58 and I'm totally confused as to the finish to use. The hinges that came on the car were painted blsck by the previous owner, but when removing the paint from them I found evidence of body color (white) was the first color, then black, then a primer and the top coat of black. I'm assuming that both the primer and top black were done by the PO and the white / black was original.

As a side note, the hood latches on my very original 60 are painted black but some has worn off.

So what do I do??

Tom

[Art B.]

Re: 1958 hood latches painted or not

Thomas:
Other judges will probably give their opinions and experiences here. At NCRS judging meets I have seen some hood latches with bare metal and some with various amounts of black paint. When I judged C1s, I did not deduct for painted ones or unpainted ones. I don't remember other judges doing so either.

[Joe M.]

Re: 1958 hood latches painted or not

Tom, I studied several 1960 Bowtie cars and observed various degrees of blackout paint on the hinge parts; male and female. It is my understanding that the hinge parts were coated in cosmoline when the arrive from the vendor; thus the paint applied at St. Louis would have adhered in varying degrees. I have actually seen traces of what I believe to be the dried,light brown waxy rust inhibitor on several sets of hinges on 1960 cars with less than 50,000 miles. Maybe others can confirm same process on 1958 cars. The photos were taken on a 1960 with less than 35,000 miles.

[Garry B.]

Re: 1958 hood latches painted or not

Tom, here's my two cents on your dilemma. When I judged and restored cars my research determined that the female hood latches were already installed when the engine bay blackout process was done. There have also been reports that there was a substance on the latches that repelled the blackout paint to some degree. The blackout was applied from the inside/center out. With these three things in mind, I restored my latches ('56,'57,'58) back to the original cad plate, lightly hit the latch with blackout spray on the inside half of the latch while leaving the outboard side unpainted. This seemed to me to follow the process and outcome appearance of my research. I never received a point deduction nor did I ever take a deduction for latches that were fully painted. Hopefully this helps talk you down off the ledge. Good luck.
Garry Barnes 18531

[Thomas H.]

Re: 1958 hood latches painted or not

Thank you for the replies. I believe I have narrowed it down to two combinations, one of which I will do.

My understanding is that the female portion of the hood latch was installed prior to body paint and engine compartment black out. This is evidenced by bare fiberglass under the latch and body color under the black as I found on my 58. During engine compartment black out, any body color overspray was covered and the latches may or may not be completely covered. If this is truly how things happened, then the female latches must have some level of black out on them. I suppose this could have been dictated by the amount of body color overspray.

I know the latches had some form of coating on them as the ones in my 60 appear to be coated with more then just paint and some has worn off over the years. I need to go take a look at the 60, but it is in storage at the moment.

So which way to go........ drum roll please.......... I don't know. Maybe I'll just mount them and whatever gets hit with black when I paint the firewall will be how they stay. (trying not to overthink this......)

Again, thank you for the input.

Tom