47 Ford Hinge Colors?

FRITZ47

FRITZ47

Senior Member
I have a nice 1947 Ford Super DeLuxe Convertible coupe (older restoration) and want to clean up the engine compartment and trunk area. The hood hinges and trunk hinges are now painted body color, but am wondering if this is correct? I am thinking black might be correct, but am not sure. Any ideas on this?

Thanks, Fred
 
On our '47 Convertible, the hood and trunk hinges are painted body color (maize yellow) while the trunk lid support "elbows" are painted black. I have seen cars where the "elbows" were also painted body color. I have no idea if our car is correct as it came from the factory however; I think it is safe to assume that the hinges would be body color.
 
Our 46 convertable has the hinges painted black. It has achieved 997 points at the early ford v-8 shows. The hoods were painted off of the car from the factory. Several of the 46-48 fords that I have disasembled have had paint under the hinge mounting area. Ford would not have went through the trouble to match bolt on parts to each color of car comming down the line. I vote for black for hood hinges and spring arms.
 
We bought our 47 in 1959 with original paint and the hinges were black and always have been. I agree with draddog68 that the way the body colors were put on in the factory the hinges would not have been painted with that same color. I, likewise, lost no points in the concourse point judging for having black hinges. All indications are that black is the color.
 
I have an original factory photo of a 1946 Ford body being dropped on to the chassis and it clearly shows the hood hinges as body color with the stay arms and springs painted black.
 
Gary in La. said:
I have an original factory photo of a 1946 Ford body being dropped on to the chassis and it clearly shows the hood hinges as body color with the stay arms and springs painted black.
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Cool, any way you can post it? Is it a black and white photo? I always like to look at vintage assembly line pics.
 
Sorry, posting that picture is way beyond my computor literacy. Yes, it is a black & white picture showing the assembly line body drop and the color distinction is very clear. It shows the chassis with fenders installed and the body already has the hood installed prior to dropping on the chassis.
 
Gary in La. said:
Sorry, posting that picture is way beyond my computor literacy. Yes, it is a black & white picture showing the assembly line body drop and the color distinction is very clear. It shows the chassis with fenders installed and the body already has the hood installed prior to dropping on the chassis.
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I'd also like to see that photo, can you email it to my so I can post it? As I said in my earlier post, all of the '46 to '48 Fords that I've owned ('46 TuDor, '46 Woody, '47 Coupe, '47 Convertible and '48 Tudor) have had the hood and trunk hinge (except the Woody) painted body color. While I'm not necessarily an "as Henry built it" restorer, I certainly appreciate all the effort that goes into trying to replicate a car as it was delivered from the factory. In the case of Post-War production, with respect to Fords in particular, it is virtually impossible to exactly replicate (to factory release) any Fords built between June '45 through the end of '48 production. This situation has been the subject of numerous articles in the V8 TIMES and it is a generally known and accepted fact that Ford used parts from previous production models in order to maximize production output for the '46 models and very possibly for the '47 and '48 production as well.

As far as judging goes (and this is not unique to the EFV8 Club) there are always flaws either in the judging criteria or the judges themselves. Case in point; a friend of mine has a beautiful '51 Merc Woody, a number of years ago he entered it for a Dearborn at an EFV8 national Meet in Dearborn. the interior of his car was not factory correct as it had aftermarket seat covers and carpeting in addition to that, there were plastic radio speaker covers on the interior door and quarter panels. According to the judge sheet, his car lost points because the oil breather cap was the wrong color as were several other items under the hood. There was no mention of the interior being incorrect. As a result, my friend took his car home and corrected everything on the judging sheet that caused him to loose points. At the next National Meet he once again entered the Merc for a Dearborn. As soon as the interior judge walked up to and liked into his Merc he deducted points or an incorrect interior.

In my opinion, that kind of error (on the part of a judge) severally diminishes the perceived value and legitimacy of the coveted Dearborn Award.

I enjoyed the thirty plus years I spent as a member of the EFV8 Club and have three National Meet trophy’s, two first place and one second place, awarded in both the ’42 to 48 and ’49 to ’53 Open Touring Class, however, after my friends fiasco and several other reasons, I choose to no longer continue my membership as I build our cars the way we want, not the way some club says they should be, especially when they themselves don’t (and in the particular case of FoMoCo), can’t really know exactly how each individual vehicle left the factory or what factory approved accessories were installed at a dealership.

Build it the way you want, stock or otherwise, and enjoy it, don’t worry about what a judge (who may or may not know what he is looking at) thinks about your car.:)
 
I owned a 47 Ford coupe sedan and it was a unrestored bad condition car when i bought it, with original maroon paint. The hinges for hood and trunk were maroon as the body color. Marv
 
The best I can do is pictures of the picture.
 

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Guys, Lets remember one thing before casting this in stone. This was a 1946 assembly line,it's quite possible that by 1948 or even 1947 the hinges could have been painted black to be universal and to speed up the installation on the line. Henry's goal was to always speed up production.
 
Let's not overlook the fact that different plants used different methods to assemble an automobile. I have seen factory photos of the body being lowered onto the frame with the front sheet metal already installed on the body and others of the same year with the front sheet metal off. The photos came from Sorensons books.
 
Gary in La. said:
Guys, Lets remember one thing before casting this in stone. This was a 1946 assembly line,it's quite possible that by 1948 or even 1947 the hinges could have been painted black to be universal and to speed up the installation on the line. Henry's goal was to always speed up production.
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I have an original '47 Convertible; it was repainted in the original factory color, maize yellow. Everything that was originally yellow was repainted to replicate originality. I would agree that different plants may have had different assembly procedures. The bottom line is that no one can be absolutely certain how cars were painted and assembled at individual plants, particularly in the Post-War years.
 
I just read a segment of the Early V8 '41-'48 book which included a paragraph explaining this point. It also stated that one can tell which assembly plant produced your vehicle by the paint color on the bottom of the car body. One plant left them red oxide, one was body color, and one was black. I just looked at the original paint on the bottom of my car and it was black. The original color was maroon. Good luck on your projects!:rolleyes:
 
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