What color was original plated hardware? Silver / clear or Gold / yellow? I am particularly interested in 1970 914-6 engine area at the moment, if the year or -6 matters.

I've seen some threads on hardware and kits, but they seem to be focused on personal preferences rather than what was original.

Thanks.

P.S. It was a much easier decision on the 356! I don't think there was gold anything on that car, unless your name was Harry Pellow.

There is a thread on the Early 911S Registry forum that sounds pretty convincing and applicable to all Porsche's regardless of model.

• Sometime in 1966 the transition from clear (silver) to yellow was made
• Zinc was used rather than cadmium plating
• Chromate or phosphate was used (giving it a yellow tint) in order to improve resistance to 'white rust'
• These were driven by DIN standards, not unique to Porsche

So that would suggest that all 914 and 914-6 hardware would have had zinc with yellow chromate finish.

Please chime in if anyone has information to the contrary. Otherwise, I guess we're going gold baby.

Yellow Zinc Dichromate on almost everything on the car.

Some exceptions are the triangle headlight armature mounting plates that show on the side of the headlight buckets and their counterparts in the fender. Also the door latches and latch plates. These are clear zinc.

Hope that helps,

E.

I thought they used Hex chrome. It really is the best product, just not available.

I used blue chromate on my latch plates. I think this is either the same or close to what Eric mentioned.

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Also, I think the rear trunk latch (receiver) is something else. I plated mine with zinc-nickel as an experiment. Worked great, IMHO.

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Pot metal/Alloy casting. We glass bead those.

Don’t throw them in with the zinc plating. They will dissolve. Same with the pull knob for the front trunk. Ask me how I know - lol!

Door stays are silver.

LOL! yeah, so don't plate the bottom latch. Maybe the nickel saved them from damage? Good to know for next time, though.

Yup that was my fault when I dropped them off at the players for you. Should have known.

No, my fault. Learning experience. Luckily they are cheap and plentiful.

They don't dissolve in the zinc.

They dissolve in the hydrochloric acid that they pickle them with in advance. If they're cleaned and dipped in a mild hydrochloric solution then or "watched" they'll be fine to plate.

It's just the wrong finish though...

I think the big beefy seat belt washers were also clear zinc

Rory; just replaced mine; mine were yellow zinc, hence the difficulty in getting accurate replacements. Edit