You may wonder when you crawl under the car or open the hood, that gray/black coating on that bolt or the dull silver bolts on some of the other parts and go "WTF is this plating?" You want to consider replating some of those parts in your restoration, but have no idea what plating you actually need. I've never really given it much thought before.
Piddling around in my parts stash a couple days ago, I came across some undocumented NOS parts that needed to get into my database. They were a complete set of hood hinges. There are the spring hinges in front, and "alligator jaw" hinges in back. Interestingly, the hinges were painted black. They're brand new from GM, but painted gloss black with that cheap-azz GM painting method they have where it chips easy as heck and basically looks like crap and will sure as sheet crack as soon as the hood springs flex. Friggin' weird. I thought they were phosphate coated. These were just painted metal. So I popped the hood and looked under there and sure enough, the factory assemblies were phosphate coated. I think. Wasn't sure if they were the phosphate and oil type or the regular zinc phosphate, so I started doing a little research. I may end up just getting the originals re-plated if I can find a place to do it that won't rape me.
While it may not all be encompassing, I ran across this Ford-based chart that lists the names of the generally used coatings and shows examples of what each of the platings look like and how to tell the difference. Plus, several names of the same type of plating. Can be kind of confusing if you're not familiar with what plating is what. I found it useful. Hopefully you can too.
Piddling around in my parts stash a couple days ago, I came across some undocumented NOS parts that needed to get into my database. They were a complete set of hood hinges. There are the spring hinges in front, and "alligator jaw" hinges in back. Interestingly, the hinges were painted black. They're brand new from GM, but painted gloss black with that cheap-azz GM painting method they have where it chips easy as heck and basically looks like crap and will sure as sheet crack as soon as the hood springs flex. Friggin' weird. I thought they were phosphate coated. These were just painted metal. So I popped the hood and looked under there and sure enough, the factory assemblies were phosphate coated. I think. Wasn't sure if they were the phosphate and oil type or the regular zinc phosphate, so I started doing a little research. I may end up just getting the originals re-plated if I can find a place to do it that won't rape me.
While it may not all be encompassing, I ran across this Ford-based chart that lists the names of the generally used coatings and shows examples of what each of the platings look like and how to tell the difference. Plus, several names of the same type of plating. Can be kind of confusing if you're not familiar with what plating is what. I found it useful. Hopefully you can too.
