hardware
Photos of the assembly line show the cars going into the paint tunnel after the initial construction of the body with doors, hood and trunk lid attached. That could indicate that the bolts holding these pieces to the body were probably painted but were they retained or replaced. That brings up another question. Were the doors, hood and trunk gaps set prior to going into the paint tunnel or was that something done after paint. No headlight buckets, head light rims, etc. are shown in the photos of the car after coming out of the paint tunnel. What was used to hold the trunk to the body and at what point were the chrome trunk hinges installed? The heater core and hoses would have to be added on the trim line so that could indicate that the screws holding the latch plate were not painted. If the latch plate was installed and the screws were prepainted, was the paint damaged when installing the hoses and heater core? I'm sure you noticed that the heads of the screws holding the latch plate are unique versus others used on the cars. Does the Archives have anything showing the assembly sequence? I've parted out several cars over the years and I have bins containing original bolts and screws from those cars.
