Early 02 Embossed Hood Beltline Trim Details Revealed

[calw]

As posted previously, I recently acquired a mid-1968 2002 which has the embossed hood trim mostly remembered thru photos in a few old advertisements and new car reviews. Since this part isn't very well known I wanted to document the example that I have.

The part being discussed here is the anodized aluminum trim strip that runs across the front of the hood - the front of the beltline trim on all 02's (except the later 1502?).

My car was purchased for parts, so I quickly removed the trim strip before it could get damaged. I then compared it to a similar non-embossed strip from a later car (a'72). The old and new parts are constructed almost the same and they are dimensionally interchangeable. All outside dimensions are identical to the limit of my measuring ability, and the material it is of the same thickness. The difference is that the older part is embossed with 6 elongated indentations with a similar theme as on the rear trim strip between the tail lights of all roundies. The difference between front and rear trim is in the dimensions of each indentation and the fact that the indented portion of the rear trim has a pattern of little dots embossed in it, while the front trim's indented areas are smooth.

The six indentations are the same size. Each is approximately 7 5/16"(185 mm) wide x 1/4" (6.3mm) tall. The three indentations on each side are about 7/8" (22mm) apart with approximately 1 1/2"(38mm)distance between the two indentations at the center. At the left and right end, the indentation start approximately 3/4"(19mm) from the end of the part. The trim has an overall height of approximately 0.62"(16mm) with the indentations starting approximately .175"(4.5mm) from the top.

The current front trim part without indentations is (Realoem page 51/12): "Decorative strip 51131804113". It is unknown if the older part had a different P/N as all of my documentation shows only one part fitting all cars.

The current front trim part for on NK sedans is "Decorative strip 51131804096" and the online artwork shows the indentation if you look carefully. It appears that this part is available (at least it shows with a price in Maximillian's online catalog). I have no idea if the current NK part is actually embossed. I've also never seen an NK sedan in person and assume that the NK and '02 parts are not dimensionally interchangeable so this is probably just interesting trivia.

It has been suggested that someone could create the appropriate die tooling to make this part by stamping the indentation on the later smooth part. Unfortunately, this appears to be not very feasible because the angles are wrong for simple straight-shot die stamping - the indentations are near to the top of the part making the "return" along the top edge interfere with the rear die. part of a die set (Manufacturing experts, please comment if this is wrong).