Part of rear axle plated?

[mdbrandy]

Just to see if anyone else has seen the same thing...

The rear axle - the part that goes through the hub through the rear bearings and has the wheel studs through it's outer plate. Has anyone looked closely at the BACK of the plate that the wheel studs goes through? On mine there is a thin plate that the wheel studs goes through first (looks like galvanized steel), but I'm looking at the back of the actual heavy steel plate that the wheel studs go through. I'd swear that it's plated! It almost looks like chrome. The front of that plate, where the wheel studs come through was nice and rusty as expected. The back, where you insert the wheel studs, was nice and clean (except for a few little corrosion blooms), and very shiny! Strange. I wire brushed the few corrosion spots and those areas are now, of course, nice and dull. Might have been a mistake. So, anyone else noticed this? These axles are from a '78 280Z.

Just wondering...

[260DET]

Mine look to be zinc plated. Maybe your plating was perfectly preserved by some grease, oil?