I'm trying to determine what parts were originally plated and which parts were painted. The parts vault has been very helpful so far, but I couldn't find what I was after for these parts in particular. I'd like to update the parts vault with the determinations from this thread.

So was this part painted or plated? If plated, was it bright silver (blue) or yellow chromate? Or maybe the answer is neither and it was black oxide or another type of finish?

Right now I am rebuilding the suspension so all my questions revolve around those parts:

91434103300 Change Lever
Click to view attachment

I suspect plated with yellow chromate, because of this photo here.

91134111500 Adjusting Screw
This threads into the change lever shown above. My guess is black oxide.

91433151501 / 91433151601 Plates

91433153303 Intermediate Layer (shim)

Click to view attachment

99908402902 M14x1.5 locking nuts for the trailing arm pivots (the ones with the weird slit).

That's all for now. Thanks,

-Derek

This pic came from the recent BAT Ivory '76. There are q couple of more also.

https://bringatrailer.com/wp-content/upload...877-scaled.jpeg

Thanks for the link and pointing out that resource, much more user friendly to navigate than the site I linked to.

Looking at this photo it appears that there is no color to the change lever (bare casting?) and the adjusting screw is oxide.


-Derek

I think many of those parts were black oxide. However, OE parts are generally well rusted, and hard to determine original state. Replacement parts were often not the same as the OE parts. The OE parts were generally lowest possible cost, while replacement parts had a healthy profit margin.

My torsion adjusters had some overspray form undercoating and underneath the coating were definite remnants of black paint so I repainted with chassis paint. I have no idea what the adjusting screws were so plated them and coated with black chromate

I noticed on the BAT pic that the bottom of the strut is rusted so the at least some of the finishes are showing age.

Thanks for the perspectives. I've spent a bit more time looking at the cars on BAT and it's just super hard to tell the difference between road grime, undercoating, rust, paint and plaiting.

This shot here for example shows the plates, and it is definitely a different color than the surrounding trailing arm bracket that is painted. But hard to conclude much beyond that.

I did some ebay searches in hopes of finding NOS parts for sale. The torsion adjusters all look like a bare casting to my eye. But couldn't find much else conclusive.

I'll keep looking and post any updates.

A post in the garage section shows what appears to be an original trailing arm lock nut with yellow chromate conversion color visible.

A lot of the finishes vary from year to year and then vary again if they were a replacement part made later. I just finish the way I want since my opinion of my work is the only one I care about.

I can't argue with that approach.

Speaking of year to year variations, I noticed that particularly looking at BAT and the spring clasps that hold the fresh air box together in the front trunk. Appears that later cars were painted black, or maybe black oxide, while early cars where bright yellow plating.

I'll just have to live with the reality that there is no right answer, but where examples of factory or oem parts are available its better than a stab in the dark. Six of one / half dozen of the other so long as I need to apply some sort of finish to my bare parts. Might as well get close. And while none of this really matters, how else am I supposed to quiet the voices in my head?

-Derek

All your parts were black oxide.