Factory A-Arm White Stenciled Markings?

Today's obscure (and, arguably anal) question:

I am in the process of doing a front end suspension rebuild, and as a part of this I am planning on sandblasting and then powder coating the a-arms.

But I notice that, on the top surface of the top a-arm, there is what appears to be some white factory assembly line stenciling. And I have an interest in trying to replicate this stenciling after the powder coating.

Can anyone confirm what this stenciling says? Looks to me as if there could perhaps be seven (7) characters: a pair of letters (or numbers), a gap, another pair of letter / numbers, another gap, followed by what looks like it might have been "USA".

Does anyone have a clearer picture showing exactly what these figures actually might be?

With thanks - DM

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Marking says "AS USA" on a GTB is says "AB USA"

 

It seems like long ago in the forum, I saw a picture of someone that had recreated it with a rubber stamp.

 

'Twas "Brian Harper":

The Adventures of 42137: A Shipwright's Tale

 

Brian A, I still do appreciate you lending me your “USA” stamp, I just have to improvise the “AS” to go with it and here’s the result.

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Thanks, guys! If I squint a bit and use my imagination, perhaps the second pair of letters in my picture could once have been "AS".

That still leaves me with the first pair of mystery characters.

Thinking about it a bit, I wonder if perhaps these might have been "SX" for the left side and "DX" for the right side?

So I'd use: "SX AS USA". (If not exactly factory correct, at least this idea does make some sort of sense to me.)

I'd bet that if I went with this, no one would ever question me about it!

Cheers - DM

 

It wasn't me! It was "Brian Harper". I still have the factory original white paint smudges on my a-arms.

If you are going to go through all that effort, you may as well do it in a factory-correct way, in which case you don't really need to worry about what they say since you can't really read it.

 

Just for the information, this is the markings on the lower front left A-Arm of my "Euro" 1989 328 GTS #80515.
The "vice pliers" had been left here and forgotten by someone exactly in that place; I took the pic just to keep a proof of that, and discovered the markings afterwards.

Rgds
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What’s the difference between the euro and US …..out of curiosity?

 

I believe it's related to the spring rate of the front springs. AUS and USA use the same ones while euro are different springs (i.e., there are 4 different front springs: AUS/USA GTB, AUS/USA GTS, euro GTB, and euro GTS).

 

Are the A arms dimensionally different ? Between the market groups .
I can understand different spring rates for different roads , well average roads and perhaps different ave payload ie the weight of the ave drivers which I guess varies between markets .
Different front bumpers + spare wheel size = different dry weight etc .

What exactly is the difference between the market group A arms though ?

 

Don't think that there is any difference in the A-arms themselves -- the marking is to identify the assembled suspension sub-assembly (each suspension "corner" is built up as a sub-assembly before it is mounted to the chassis. I don't have any, but others have posted pictures of the F factory showing these pre-assembled suspension "corners" in groups).

 

As said by Steve above...I might even have the 308 spring rate table somewhere, will post it if I find it.

And, just for the anecdote: not only were the A-Arms the same for all cars and markets, please be reminded that the front suspension of the "serie 2" 328s (those with bulged wheels) is the same than the "Mondial", therefore the front A-Arms of these cars are also the same than those of the "Mondial"...parts commonality...

Rgds

 

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/308-coil-spring-suspension-data-sheet.374929/
Rgds

 

Got it guys .Thx .

 

Although "AS USA" makes more sense that what I made a stamp of, the stamp I made was the best approximation of what was on all four of my a-arms. I just couldn't make the first two characters be any letters I was familiar with. It was more of a graphical triangle with a squiqqly bit, and it was the same on all four. Maybe the stamp was broken that day and they were doing the best they could with what they had?