Fuchs center caps on an 83 Cabriolet

[mhackney]

The center caps on my 83 Cabriolet appear to be original but I can't find another similar. The wheels are the standard Fuchs with black spokes. On all of the 1983 vintage Porsche sales literature and the car magazine reviews, the caps are solid black to match. I've been collecting photos of 83 Cabs for my registry and I've seen solid black and solid silver (aluminum) but mine are different as you can see in the photo below. The crest looks like it might have been gold below the PORSCHE and the floral/leafy areas and center stallion. With black background in the bars and black "highlights". The ring around the outside is also black.

I'd like to find out what these looked like originally so I can repaint them to match.

Cheers,
Michael

[gtc]

Doesn't look original to me.
I'd just paint them solid black to match the wheels. All the center caps I've ever seen with hand painted crests look terrible.

[mhackney]

Thanks gtc. I just noticed on one of the others vestiges of red paint on one of the bars. So this was probably a painted crest. I also prefer the all black so original or not, these are going to be painted.

[mhackney]

Joe Bob, what do the caps on your cab look like?

[Ayles]

I have a pair of black ones if you are interested. Only ran for couple hundred km so they show as new.

[mhackney]

I would need 4. But I can bead blast these and powder coat so they should be fine.

[mhackney]

I found some caps that look identical to mine that were for sale here a little while ago: Wtb: Fuchs center caps ring style with no pull holes silver anodized

My caps have the same ring attachment in the back and the same dimpled pattern and bar pattern on the crest. The vestiges of red and gold look the same too.

I think it makes sense to paint them all black to go with my Fuchs and what appears to be "normal" for the 83 Cabs.

[mhackney]

It's awful early there in CA isn't it?

[megerian]

Don't forget, some center caps have an inlaid crest. But I agree, the handpainted ones generally look like crap.

[mhackney]

From everything I've seen (trade literature, period car magazine articles, Porsche literature and cars themselves) the 83 US Cabriolets had black caps on black spoke Fuchs standard. In looking at my caps under a scope, it does look like they are original but have been reworked - the surface black has been removed and then the crest colored. I am going to return them to satin black like the wheels.

[gtc]

Rustoleum satin black (paint code 7777 as I recall) is a good match for the factory fuchs wheel paint. Probably easier than trying to find a match at the powdercoater.

[mhackney]

Thanks GTC. I actually have the Rustoleum 7777 and it is a good match. I also do my own powder coating and got some beautiful Satin black several years ago when I redid the sheet metal in my ex-70S. I might just stick with the Rustoleum on these though. I'm thinking about doing a gentle overspray on the wheels to clean them up a bit so the match might be better.

[mhackney]

I can probably live with this. Rustoleum 7777830 Satin Black.


(This is the same cap shown in the first post.)

Although it looks like paint did not fill the right side of the crest edge, it's just a photo artifact. I looked at the part under a microscope and it is completely coated.

[86 911 Targa]

Painted like yours, but, went one step further with 356 hood crests.

Gerry

[IslandHopper]

yeah I think your caps likely WERE solid black, but someone polished the paint off and then hand painted in the details. That spray job looks great! I rattle-canned mine silver a while ago and they have held up.

[mhackney]

Here's a before photo. The Fuchs are a bit tired looking and the caps stick out like a sore thumb:


I do plan to machine polish and repaint the Fuchs but that's a winter project. For now I removed each wheel and removed the cap to bead blast and paint. While the paint dried I cleaned the wheel front and back with Maguiar's All Purpose Cleaner (I love this stuff for cleaning off grime) and hand polished the aluminum and paint (lightly) with Noxon Metal Polish. I recleaned with the APC and dried and then treated the entire wheel with a coat of Vaseline, let it sit in the sun for an hour and then hand buffed it off. This is the final product, not perfect but much nicer:

Now I need to figure out what to do about the lug nuts! I'm thinking about bead blasting them and painting with the satin Rustoleum too. I came across a tip to use a thin plastic bag over the lug nut and then placing a socket on it to minimize/prevent marring painted lugs. Worth a shot I think.

[RichardNew]

Here's something I put together a few years ago. So far I haven't heard any complaints.






Richard Newton

[mhackney]

Thanks Richard, I actually came across your post on another thread. That's how I identified my caps (2).