Yellow tinted Cornering Lights?

[vdk2010]

I just bought a NOS cornering light for my '69 Imperial and its reflector seems to be painted translucent yellow inside. My original one on the car is not yellow, but normal chrome-ish silver.

My question is now, is the NOS part just faded or are the reflectors supposed to have a yellow tint?

 

[bigmoparjeff]

Hi Julian,

I don't think that it's supposed to have the yellow tint. After seeing such a high percentage of flawed NOS parts, I've come up with a theory that many non-mechanical factory replacement parts are ones that failed quality control inspection and deemed not good enough to go on a brand new car. They were considered acceptable to go on a car that's been in service for some time, likely to be installed by a body shop after the car was in an accident, and probably never closely inspected or seen by the owner of the car.

My guess is that there was an issue with the plating process that caused the yellow tint. Once it was noticed, the yellowish housings were separated from the rest and destined to become replacement parts. Once the housing is installed in the car, I doubt that the yellow tint will be noticeable.

I have a good number of NOS body parts in my collection, and just about every part that's plated has some kind of significant flaw. Two common issues are pitting on pot metal parts, and areas of very thin plating on bumpers.


Jeff

 

[vdk2010]

Thanks Jeff! I've seen several cornering lights over the years and none were yellow, but on this one, the yellow tint looks intentally painted that way, that threw me off. But whatever coating is on there must be yellowed over the years then.

I heard before that a lot of NOS parts are broken ones that dealers had left laying around on their shelves, but that a lot of NOS parts are flawed from the factory is new to me. But makes sense to me.