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Thu Jul 12, 2012 5:54 pm

Started work on the Gates for my 62 Single Cab. The plan is to repair my gates with parts I got from Gersten. While removing the lower frame piece, I noticed that there are "dimples" on the original part. The replacement doesn't have the "dimples". The dimples appear to be alignment marks for installing the gate hinges. But there were also sets of "dimples" where there were no hinges. We believe that VW stamped dimples for Single Cab and Double Cab installations and then presumably cut the parts when building the Double Cab gates. Anyone care to comment? I plan on punching the "dimples" on to my replacement parts to maintain originality.

Thu Jul 12, 2012 10:25 pm

VW used the same stampings for parts of the right and left gates. The bottom part is intechangeable R and L. If you look at the location of your hinges on the two sides of the bed they should line up with different areas on the gates. SC gates were cut down for DCs, but VW stopped that in 1961.

Fri Jul 13, 2012 11:26 am

When removing all the sheet metal attached to my 8 hinges, I noticed the dimples you are talking about. IIRC, every one of them had those dimples where you'd expect- to line up the positions with the pressed recesses you can see in my pic on the back of each hinge. My SC is a 1960, but it is clear my gates are not original, they were dove blue and not light grey OG paint.

So, because mine are 66 and down (not having the 67 and up rectangular hinge recess), it seems you may be correct. I have never noticed gates with that offset set of dimples.