Position of license plate light 356a t2 cabriolet

[Vidar Ingebretsen]

I have a 1958 t2 reutter cabriolet. I need help to find the correct posision of the licence plate light. Are there anyone that has a correct drawing, or can help me with the correct posision ?

[Spencer Harris]

There seems to be some variation in mounting holes, and I've never found any factory schematic showing the exact position.
I measured my '58 T2 Cab (today) and the three mounting holes are 38-7/8" from the decklid lip. The center hole is 38-1/4". I took the measurements off the original rear panel before drilling the holes in the replacement panel, but did not record the measurements at the time.

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Someone posted these pics some time ago. Looks like his three mounting holes are 37-3/4" from the decklid lip and the center hole for wires is 35-1/2".

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This was another dimensional pic that was posted in the Forum, but the drawing shows millimeters which I'm sure should be inches.

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[Jon Bunin]

This was another dimensional pic that was posted in the Forum, but the drawing shows millimeters which I'm sure should be inches.

Spencer, the dimensions in the last picture should've actually been noted as centimeters (cm), not as millimeters (mm) or inches.

[Spencer Harris]

Is that your picture I swiped and failed to give photo credit to? Sorry.
40.64 cm would be 16 inches from the decklid opening to the center line of the license light. That can't be right?

[Martin Benade]

Your 38 7/8” from the deck lid lip, is that from the top edge? That seems to match up pretty well to the 16” from the bottom of the deck lid opening.

[Jon Bunin]

Someone posted these pics some time ago. Looks like his three mounting holes are 37-3/4" from the decklid lip and the center hole for wires is 35-1/2".

Spencer, the dimensions in all of the photos you posted are in centimeters (cm), not inches ( " ) or millimeters (mm). And no, none of those are my photos.
The license light isn't 37" from the decklid lip, that's 3+ feet.

I just measured the distance between my tail light mounting screws- roughly 32", or 81 cm. The upper pictures say 40½ + 40½ (= 81), the lower picture says 40mm + 40mm (= 80), but should be cm not mm.
The distance between the tail light mounting holes cannot be 40½" + 40½" (inches), the entire car isn't even that wide.

[Vidar Ingebretsen]

The picture with mm seems to be correct if you convert it to cm. I will use this one. Thanks a lot for help.

[Spencer Harris]

Yes, I'm a bonehead for giving my dimensions in inches.
I re-measured today using a smaller, more flexible tape for a more accurate reading:
Bottom decklid lip to DS mounting hole 37.7 cm
Bottom decklid lip to Center mounting hole 38.2 cm
Bottom decklid lip to PS mounting hole 38.0 cm
Bottom decklid lip to large, wiring routing hole 36.0 cm
Very sorry for the confusion!

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[Vidar Ingebretsen]

Thanks a lot, this will help me very much !

[Spencer Harris]

Vidar, The bracket and shine-up light should, of course, be horizontal. The mounting holes are larger than the fixture mounting studs, so you have several mm adjustment to true it to horizontal. Paint and filler thickness account for most of the variation of my measurements. 37.7 cm to the mounting bracket holes is consistent with the 37-3/4 measurement that is scribed in chalk on the brown tail panel pictured above. The photograph of the white car showing 40.64 is measured to the center-line of the light housing, which is tilted downward when mounted. I think you'll be safe using 37.75 cm +/- for the mounting holes. I scrapped my old 58 rear panel, but I have a couple of pre-A rear clips, and I can measure the hole diameters if you need.
Again, sorry for the mix-up with inches.

[Vidar Ingebretsen]

We fixed this last week en the workshop and your picture was great. No I am sure that we have the light in the correct posision