Phone dial center caps?

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3liter914-6
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Getting ready to paint my phonedials back to
(fairly) stock color. The center caps are bare metal with black highlights on the Porsche shield portion. Googling and eBay shows me pictures a lot of similar center caps. I’d planned on painting the caps, but if bare metal is the original finish, even though it seems there will be some contrast between the painted wheel and the cap I’ll go that way for (semi) originality.
If that’s the case (all caps in bare metal) I assume the caps and paint weren’t even a perfect match when new?

Wheels when I got the car were a sort of graphite so caps will be a lot closer regardless of painted or not.

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walfreyydo
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Some are painted to match the wheels, others are not. My D90 and phone dial caps were painted.

These caps came on many/most wheels of this time period and have been mixed and matched across different wheel types over the decades. For instance, on the sewer lid wheels they were unpainted, on the D90s and phone dials they are painted.

If you are looking for originality, paint them to match the finish of the phone dials. Black accent optional (Ive seen them both ways)
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3liter914-6
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Thanks. I just went ahead and painted. I figure I can always strip them later, but mixing all the paint, hoping it’ll match and cleaning the gun is a hassle that I’d rather not do again.

Will probably hit it with some black paint later for the recessed areas, sand it back down to silver on the raised areas and reclear, but I’m happy with what I’ve got for now. Definitely an improvement in my book over what I had.
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CEW
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Looks good to me. I like the “undertstated” look.

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stoneguy
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Just for the record. I bought my 944NA new in 86. I have the phone dials, silver with center caps matching and no black in emblem. This was stock on my car.

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3liter914-6
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Always good to have data from original owners. Thank you!

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Dionysius
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Nice job! They really look good.

Ken

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akaBoB68
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Hey 3Liter,

Turned out nice! Can you share details about the paint: code, was it a base clear, single stage etc. my local paint shop is good about mixing things up and my father-in-law’s 88 could use some freshening up of the wheels.

Thanks,

Lj

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Larry C
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3liter914-6 wrote: Fri Apr 11, 2025 12:51 pm Thanks. I just went ahead and painted. I figure I can always strip them later, but mixing all the paint, hoping it’ll match and cleaning the gun is a hassle that I’d rather not do again.

Will probably hit it with some black paint later for the recessed areas, sand it back down to silver on the raised areas and reclear, but I’m happy with what I’ve got for now. Definitely an improvement in my book over what I had.IMG_1292.jpegIMG_2423.jpeg
I think this picture would make a great monthly banner!
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Belgian951
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Looks beautiful! Good job.
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