I am getting down to putting some things back on the car, and am cleaning them up. The rear suspension is next. I know not to paint machined surfaces, but how about sheet metal things such as the suspension ear, the outer bolt on suspension ear, the shims for alignment? Mine look to have been lightly painted, but it is hard to say for sure. Don't want this to loosen up sometime down the road. Considering painting all but mating surfaces, but it would be a lot easire to just paint or powder coat it all.

Thanks, Joe O.

I would not spray the suspension bits until after they are all assembled and then paint the outside to "seal" out any moisture. The mating surfaces have to be bare metal.

Cadmium plated.

wrong forum for C/W stuff! take your Q-tips and go to the right room!

huh?
there's nothing CW about that question ...

i would *not* paint any mating surfaces, that includes the shims ... plating yes, painting no ...
Andy

Thanks for the info. Joe O.

Howsabout you just swipe a VERY THIN layer of grease or oil on the shims.

That ought to keep the water and air out prevent furhter egress of water between the shims and the rust gods at bay. Clean and paint the edges after torquing.

Ken

The shims in my car are painted black. I have no reason to believe they didn't come that way from the factory.

OEM came plated with (I think) nickel or zinc.

Cad plating is almost outlawed due to EPA requirements in most of the world.

I make shims and yes paint them black - but - I do use a state of the art ecoat system at work to do this. 11 stage cleaning sytem with zinc phosphate and not the iron phosphate which can greatly lower the salt spray resistance. Testing for salt spray resistance is done monthly on this sytem with results at or exceeding 1200 hours. We paint a lot of automotive parts, including some of the stuff for the local Toyota plant. It is used commonly on underbody and engine componets.

Just for comparison here are some salt spray charts...