Ive been working on smallfords for some time now and am noticing a blotch of yellow paint on various  suspension components. On my new fiesta in the engine bay there is a yellow dot on every connection, bolt, and clip so that nothing can be moved without disturbing this. So on the capri what did this mark denote and how extensive was it used?

On newer cars I think these little dabs show whether something has been removed/repaired, and if something has been disturbed (not by the dealer servicemen) you may void your warranty. They're usually used on bolts, nuts and threads.

I'm not aware if Capris had these back when they were new. Some components (springs, shocks, etc) would have certain markings to make it easier to assemble from the instruction sheet, but not sure about individual bolts.

Cheers
Jamie

I know some of the AVO cars had a bright orange dab of paint on some of the suspension bolts, and other bits like the struts and springs had other paint markings, but i dont know if any Aussie cars had these. cheers O
 

On new cars when they go through the production line, generally when the air gun used to assembly the bolts gets to the required torque settings it also sprays a bit of paint, so when then during final checks when it leaves the assembly line the quality assurance person ticks of the components which are marked with the paint and don't they dont have to manually check the bolt torque.
 
Some older cars would also have a dap of paint on selected components bolts to indicate it had been torqued correctly, but this was done manually by the assembler.
 
On older vehicles paint codes where used to designate which component was required for a specific model, ie on for a V8 Falcon the correct V8 Falcon had a different paint stripe to say a six cylinder Falcon and station wagons would have a different paint strip. That way when Lewegy was assembling the car he only was given a build sheet with the required colourd components specific to that spec vehicle.
 
Some people when restoring a concourse vehicle will also replicate these paint strips for the specific components  to make it look like it just rolled of the production line.
Regarding Capri's the only paint marks I can verify are the red dabs of paint near the gearbox crossmember bolts.

I have an original gear box cross member with red paint dabs (colour is a very close match to Red Pepper). Ive also seen paint dabs on my car and a very original 72 V6 on the engine cross member where the lower control arms connect, the bracket where the tie rod ends connect, the end engine mount bolts where they bolt to the block, the two piece tail shaft body bracket and the tail shaft itself.

The tail shaft has a number of paint markings also.

I assumed that the paint dabs were to confirm that key bolts were tightened to the set torque rates.