I've sandblasted the black paint of my 280's wiper assembly. Looks to be stainless like the 240s. I just now thought to see if a magnet will stick. But anyway should I clear coat them or just wipe them with Never Dull wadding? I don't want them to rust.

Thanks for any replies and sorry for jumping on here so quick. I'll try a magnet right now.

Thanks, Cliff.

I used a matte clear coat after removal of the black paint on mine It's important that the wipers don't reflect light onto your eyes. I don't  have a closeup of the clear coated wipers but you can see the finish if you zoom in on the pic.

Man I love that car!

They're definitely going to need clear satin/matte. I got a magnet about 3" from the arm and it about pulled it out of my hand. 8^)

Don't know where I'm thinking stainless from? I read so much gibberish on the internet. 

Thanks Doc.

Edited October 27, 20177 yr by siteunseen

35 minutes ago, siteunseen said:

Man I love that car!

They're definitely going to need clear satin/matte. I got a magnet about 3" from the arm and it about pulled it out of my hand. 8^)

Don't know where I'm thinking stainless from? I read so much gibberish on the internet. 

Thanks Doc.

Mine are the wiper arms that came with the car (pretty certain they're the original '78 wiper arms) and they're definitely not SS.

Thanks for the compliment on the car. It's always nice to be appreciated by the forum bros.

Do they look like these? I got theses of a junkyard car. Not sure of the year but they very similar to my 240's.

Found this little baby too, $5. 

Edited October 27, 20177 yr by siteunseen

You can't always use a magnet to positively identify stainless. There's plenty of stainless that IS magnetic.

If it's steel and it's non-magnetic, then it's stainless.
But if it's steel and it IS magnetic, you still can't rule out stainless. It might be a magnetic grade.

I believe (from the fact that they are steel and haven't rusted) that the wiper arms ARE stainless.

My 240's blades haven't rusted in 45 years so I believe you, always have. Like Honest Abe the vampire hunter.

Since I have a half quart of matte from Eastwood I'll shoot them just to be safe and probably smoothe out the bead blasting I did to remove the black. I'm worried the spring underneath may rust in my garage. 

Yeah, I'm sure the spring is NOT stainless, but I believe the rest of the assy is.

@dmorales-bello, why is it you don't think your arms are stainless?

Capn': I thought they were ferrous because a magnet does stick to them. I guess I was wrong.
Site: The wiper blades with the "wire style" frame are not from a 77 or 78 280. The 280s in those years had a solid holder for the blade. The wiper arms themselves are the same as earlier Zs I think, and you can interchange the blade holder you like best. Since I prefer the wire style holder I went with those and stored my solid, black originals. What I stripped and clear coated was the arms.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G925A using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Those came off a 280 that was standing on on its passenger's door. Someone had pulled the transmission at the junkyard and left it that way. It must have been a '75 or '76 but they were painted black.

I've got them nice and clean and will try and put a coat of clear on today, rainy out now.

Thanks for the info. Cliff

Not sure if there's any confusion here about color or not, but starting in 77 Datsun started painting the arms and blade holders black. Some details in this thread here:
http://www.classiczcars.com/topic/58084-proper-wiper-blade-and-arm-color/

So the "correct" color for anything prior to 77 would be silver, but should be black for 77-78.

And I'm not sure about the blade holders (solid vs. the rod style), but everything I've ever seen was the rod style regardless of year. I've not seen solid holders that were believed to be original as shipped.