TheSamba.com :: View topic - Early oval license plate light lense mounting

Sat Jun 01, 2024 11:04 am

Hi Guys,

I have an early oval.
The license plate light is original.
When i took it apart before restoration, I had the impression there was a seal/rubber in the small groove that holds the lens. Can anyone confirm this and can this be found somewhere?

Sat Jun 01, 2024 4:39 pm

Tempie wrote: Hi Guys,

I have an early oval.
The license plate light is original.
When i took it apart before restoration, I had the impression there was a seal/rubber in the small groove that holds the lens. Can anyone confirm this and can this be found somewhere?

I agree with the small rubber seal in the groove. But I can not find the picture I thought I had. But I am almost 100% sure it does have one.

Sun Jun 02, 2024 1:14 am

Yes, both my 53 and 54 have it. It's a small rubber hose inserted in the housing ridge.

Sat Jun 29, 2024 11:14 am

I assume this is applied against moisture/water. Anyone knows a source/trick?

Sat Jun 29, 2024 1:47 pm

Yes, there was a gasket in the license light housing lens channel, at least later on. The Aug 1954 parts book shows the part number being 111 943 149. However, can anyone rule out that early on, the lenses were simply sealed with D15 sealing compound? The 52-53 and 52-55 Workshop manuals specify D15 sealing compound for the heart brake and tail-lights, but is silent about the license light. I have encountered license light sealant more than once, and it looked like the same stuff in the tail-lights. Possibly the gaskets were adopted to speed up assembly?

Sun Jun 30, 2024 7:10 am

seal is shown as part 42 in this dia. plenty of small bore silicon tubing available on ebay or the like, cut open along the length should do the job...

Mon Jul 01, 2024 10:14 am

Yep! I have been aware of this hard to see/hard to find simple hollow hose-like seal sine I got my first Oval back in the 1990's. On a used license light housing this seal is almost un-noticeable and is usually crushed and falling apart if it is still in that channel at all after all these years. I suspect that a lot of folks don't even know a seal existed in there. I can't believe that none of the parts suppliers haven't yet reproduced such a simple seal for our early Beetle license plate light assemblies!

Back in 1996 or 7 while a few of us were digging/shopping thru the dark, dusty vintage part storage racks in the Siftung Automuseum parts rooms in Wolfsburg when I came upon a drawer with a few of these NOS seals and bought 'em all (maybe 5 or 6 of them). It is a very small diameter soft/squishy rubber hollow tube that you insert into that "V" shaped housing channel and then you insert the plastic lens in there too. It keeps moisture from working its way up and into the lens and housing.

Imagine how many folks are running around in Oval Beetles with trashed remnants or no rubber seal at all (just their lens stuffed in the metal housing's "V" channel) not even knowing there should be a soft rubber tubular seal in there! If Bob at BBT or Tony at WW wanted to reproduce this seal it ought to be easy to have done. I know that I have at least one unused NOS seal here awaiting installation on the license plate light housing for my upcoming '56 Kabriolett project, and I would provide photos and measurements to those two guys if they were serious about reproducing this hard to find tiny seal for their customers. Yeah, maybe there is some rubber supplier out there has something close that might work, but the the real thing or an exact reproduction would be nice to have available again...

Bill

p.s. As mentioned in the post above mine the seal is callout #42 in the exploded illustration. And it is not sliced-open along the length tube (although that might work?), it is an enclosed hollow soft grayish/black rubber tube. I'll try to get a picture taken and posted soon of the seal...

Thu Jul 04, 2024 1:02 pm

Okay, as promised I dug out my NOS tiny rubber tubular seal (VW part # 111 943 131) and a license plate housing to take a few photos. It is a hair over 20cm long:

Here is the "V" profile metal channel on the license plate housing that the seal is placed into before adding the lens itself. That is a used fragment in the channel in this photo:

This is one of the seals I found in the VW Classic parts dept in the VW Siftung Museum in Wolfsburg:

You can see it is rubber and tubular like a hose to crush into the "V" channel when the plastic lens is added to seal out moisture:

Here the NOS seal is partially inserted into the channel:

A little harder to see but the NOS seal in now fully inserted:

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Bill Bowman

Fri Jul 05, 2024 11:42 am

That part number for the seal is likely incorrect.
The Aug 1954 parts book has this:

111 943 131 License light housing to Oct '52
111 943 131a License light housing from Oct '52
111 943 149 Gasket for license light lens 111 943 147a
111 943 147a Lens for 111 943 131a

Fri Jul 05, 2024 11:50 am

i have some shrink tubing that looks just like that , Hmm

Fri Jul 05, 2024 1:34 pm

This stuff would work. I am not sure which size. 1/8" is close. Maybe BulliBill can measure his original for diameter.

https://www.mcmaster.com/1298N1/
https://www.mcmaster.com/1298N2/

Sat Jul 06, 2024 8:13 am

BulliBill wrote:

looks like 2.5 to 3mm dia from this view...

that 1/8th dia soft neoprene looks worth a try

Sun Jul 07, 2024 6:31 pm

The 1/8" foam works good! This is a part I did not know I needed. Thank you TS!