I've been replating the nuts, bolts and washers along with the front, rear and engine latches. I had these done in Cad Plated (gold), anyway, I'm not sure about the Door Striker Plates, I'm thinking that they should be done in Nickel Plated, I noticed on a newer 1993 RS that was at the R&G Swap meet this past weekend that they were Cad Plated, any suggestions?

What about the rear sway bar bolts that go through the rear shocks, should they be Cad or Nickel?

Disclaimer: I am not worried about concourse, I just hate putting dirty parts back on the car.

Some of the parts after getting them back from the plater;

Some more

A picture of the first round of bolts back from the plater;

Strikers and their associated screws are nickle

Well, you do have to be careful in your terminology as well. Cad plating or cadmium plating was a silvery color, but cadmium is bad for the environment and is seldom available anymore.

That leaves the yellow and silver zinc plating that is most common. There is quite the mixture of the two that can be used on the car. A lot of parts such as high strength fasteners are just black phosphate coating like the rear shock bolts refered to.

Ok, so it's really yellow zinc plating not cad and black phospahate looks like what I wanted, for the rear shock bolts.

Thank you

Hi Lou,

Terminology about plating is confusing. I know the door striker plates are zink plated (100% sure). I double checked with a couple platers after inspecting my parts & they confirmed. All the other stuff, nuts, bolts, washers, etc are yellow dichromate (spelling??) I don't believe I found any small parts that needed nickel or cadium plating (it's expensive).

My advise: Take a few parts to the platers & they will tell you what you have. I'll try to find some of my old invoices & post later.

Tom

Lou that looks good. Im looking at doing the EXACT same thing (same parts).
How much $$$
Are you blasting all that stuff before providing the plater or is it a pkg deal?

I dip the parts in Vinegar over night, then clean them up with a SOS pad. Brad (BDStone) has a contact in Orange County who then beed blasts them and then plates them. My understanding is that it runs about $50.00 per bucket full, which I think is very reasonable, considering that they strung each bolt and washer to a wire in order to dip them in the plating solution, there sure are alot of nuts, bolts and washers on these cars.

I have found a cad plater here in Oregon. That is all theguy does. He plates for Helicopter and aircraft companies.
He cad plates in gold and in silver, same process just different colors.
His pricing is very reasonable, charges by weight.
Craig C. Laughlin CAMP 914