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An interesting discovery

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Whitephrog

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I have always been facinated by the discovery of the yellow steering arm on the Sprinzel Sebring Sprite.

https://www.spritespot.com/gallery/sprinzelsebringsprite?page=28

Well today is cold and dreary in East Tennessee well suited for a day in the garage. I've been putting off the nasty job of cleaning up the front suspension of the new Whitephrog but decided that today I would get started. To my suprise as the layers of grit, grim and grease disappeared I begin to see spots of yellow paint on the steering arm. The more I cleaned the more yellow I found. Seems as if AN5L/9382, produced 2 January 1959, left England on 6 January on her way to Yokohama, Japan with yellow arms.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22682710@N04/2203665137/
 
Very interesting, Ray. I like a good mystery and when I run across something of interest I usually photo it and make some notes. On my current "Spridget Project" there's a photo gallery on the "Disassembly" page that I have titled "Artifacts" and placed a few photos of interesting (to me at least) details and my notes.

Thanks for sharing this,

Ray
 
Ray
I have just disassembled my front axle and yes mine are yellow also. I'm sure they are original. AN5L/9477 & AN5L/9382 are close cousins (no HC yet). Looks like at least in Jan of '59 the steering arms were painted yellow!

Paul
 
Yep, were yellow splotches on mine as well.

Not covered in "orginal Sprites and Midgets" expect that it is wrong unless that was yellow primer then black.

My orginal one in 1963 did not have yellow as I got it, black.
 
Don't think it's primer. Too much evidence that a few arms were yellow from the factory.
 
hehe, they ran out of black paint. Miss Agatha is a 1959 and would look good in yellow. wish we could prove it.
 
Shocks were not painted on Bugeyes for sure, Just alum as they came from the foundry.
 
There should however be some paint on the shock arm - this from the factory to identify the shock in the parts bin.
 

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Now I'm gonna hafta dig into the parts bins for my original front end and see if there is any yellow!!!
 
Yes, someone has hit on the answer: They came with the yellow splotches from the factory. I worked for a BMC dealer and everything suspension wise, we got on re-stock orders had a yellow bit of paint. (Rear axles, front stubs and some brake parts as well.) Some of them came through Mich., some from SF BMCD and later Compton, CA. As sources dried up and older stock was sold over the counter, the replacement pieces had been sold off to smaller firms around the world. And the rest of the story you already know: we are now looking at India and China for them. (Not my recommendation.)

Of course now everyone wanting a Sebring Sprite is going out to the garage and is going to start spattering yellow paint around. Oh, and many of the parts re-stock came with black paint as well; no yellow.
 
Just came in after an early night call, as I drove by my garage I noticed I had left the lights on so I had to pop in to get some better shots of the suspects. The mystery is intriguing: /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbsup.gif

1. My car could never be a Sebring, as it does not have disc brakes. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cry.gif
2. The arms are solid yellow below the dirt. https://www.flickr.com/photos/13206219@N07/2208791914/ /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cool.gif
3. The rear shocks almost seem like they are plated with the orange/red color. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/shocked.gif
https://www.flickr.com/photos/13206219@N07/2208791550/in/photostream/
4. Knowing that lots of odd things happened when painting occured at BMC plants it would not surprise me that these are OEM /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/winner1.gif

Now you may all crush my hopes /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/lol.gif

Paul
P.S. I only had a little paint pep left in a can to clean the parts. Hopefully I'll be able to give them a good clean this week between calls. Its time to start blasting and painting. I've got to be done by July!
 
Paul

When in 59 was your car produced? I'm wondering if the yellow arms occured at random or in batches.
 
Whitephrog said:
Yellow and blue on my rear shocks as well.
Click to expand...

BTW on my 1500 there was also a line of blue on the front spring. Don't know if the 1275 springs had an equivalant? My question though is this - anyone want to take a stab at what the rattle can matching colours (blue & yellow) are?

I've painted my engine green so I'd love to paint the arms yellow just for fun. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/hammer.gif
 

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It was a brush on identity marker, IIRC. Do what they did: get a can of whichever enamel housepaint comes closest and brush it on your springs 'n shock arms as ya walk past 'em. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/jester.gif
 
The generic, or industry-wide name for that color blue is "Process Blue" though individual brands may call it something else!!
 
Ray
Jan of 1959
 
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