>It should be zinc plated.
There is a silver color zinc plating and a gold colored, usually
called "cad" plating.
>Try a chrome plater. It might be worthwhile getting a new one.
Generally the folks that do chrome plating differ from the "zinc"
plating places. The "zinc" places I've seen are little hole-in-the
wall places which handle alot of new manf parts from various companies.
The "chrome" places seem to be more "auto" related and large installations.
I have experimented with tie'ing bolts with lock washers and washers
attached with copper wire, three wraps in the area to be covered with
the nut. The latest scheme is a piece of copper sheet with holes
drilled for the various size bolts. This works well for sand blasting
and dipping the parts (must pass electrical current, hence the copper
wire or sheet). Latest design is a copper piece with a rolled edge
which "hangs" on the metal bar to suspend the parts in the solution.
Oh, back to the original question, most everything under the hood, in
fact the whole car is "gold" in color. Many of the new items such as
the hood latch piece that bolts to the hood (bonnet) is zinc and cad mixed.
The new one is a much lighter gauge metal with weaker feeling spring/assembly.
A replated old one is MUCH preferred.
There are several other items that come painted black which were originally
plated, etc. Not to mention the date codes on the items like door latch
plates. Its much better to plate the original vs. inducing unknown quality
pieces if at all possible.
Note the trunk lid rod has a date code, same for wiper motor top plate...
Anyhow, a good "cad" plating place and recover most everything, the local
place charges $45 minimum, i.e. the whole car worth of pieces... another
batch in "zinc" completes this process.
As for the hood latch that bolts to the tub... was this really silver
color? I do not know... The OEM gold seemed to wear off quickly,
so its difficult to tell on any exposed area. All those washers holding
the pedal box were "cad"... ditto for lots of the other pieces you
usually see in "zinc".
Roger
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Roger G. Bolick, rgb@exact.com 512-794-9567, FAX 512-345-2879
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