9 hours ago, inline6 said:

Well, I have a couple of questions then.  How do these look?  

Depends on whether you want a finish that accurately depicts the finish of an original car or if you want show car bling.  Other guys here could tell you more authoritatively than me but from what I have seen the way you have your parts now is pretty close to the way Nissan would have sent them to the platers.  Some parts were shinier than others but I think that has more to do with the manufacturing process on a batch by batch basis.

Personally I'm not going for that kind of originality, when I lift the hood I want to blind the person who is looking with SHINY so I guess I over finish them.

9 hours ago, inline6 said:

Additionally, when using the dremel with stainless wire brush I am getting some of this (uneven polishing):

That is another good thing about using a bench mounted wire wheel, the consistency of the finish is very uniform without that kind of patchiness.

That looks to be most excellent prep - congrats! I've only wet sanded a couple of items - fuel rails and inspection lights, everything else gets the wire wheel for consistency as @grannyknot mentions. I resort to the Dremel only for very tight areas where the wheel won't reach.

If you have not used a commercial plating service previously, be advised that tiny bits can/will get lost - it's just the nature of the process. You can help to avoid much (but not all) of that by tying small items together. I use soft wire for stringing springs, nuts, washers into a loop to cut down losses. For small screws I use a thin SS wire and wrap it a few times around the threads, then give it a few twists to lock it, then daisy-chain the next one and so on. This approach is not perfect but far better than leaving everything loose.

40 minutes ago, jfa.series1 said:

That looks to be most excellent prep - congrats! I've only wet sanded a couple of items - fuel rails and inspection lights, everything else gets the wire wheel for consistency as @grannyknot mentions. I resort to the Dremel only for very tight areas where the wheel won't reach.

Ahhh.  I was wondering about places the wire wheel can't get to.  My prep thus far for all nuts and bolts and washers has just been to degrease, then glass bead blast (I have beads that are not roughing up the surface much), and then 2 hours in a 18 lb capacity vibrating tumbler with 15 lbs of stainless bits (media), some water, and a tiny bit of citric acid for 2 hours.  Then, remove from the tumbler and dry with a towel and compressed air.   

For parts too big or awkward for the vibrating tumbler, after bead blasting, I do a bit of hand "polishing" with #000 fine steel wool.  For the horns, I used a dremel lightly and then followed with #000 steel wool.   I have experimented a bit with using #000 steel wool on some parts after running in the tumbler for 2 hours. 

I am going to try one more media experiment in the tumbler to follow the two hours in stainless bits and see how that turns out.

9 minutes ago, jfa.series1 said:

If you have not used a commercial plating service previously, be advised that tiny bits can/will get lost - it's just the nature of the process. You can help to avoid much (but not all) of that by tying small items together. I use soft wire for stringing springs, nuts, washers into a loop to cut down losses. For small screws I use a thin SS wire and wrap it a few times around the threads, then give it a few twists to lock it, then daisy-chain the next one and so on. This approach is not perfect but far better than leaving everything loose.

OHHH!  I was thinking I'd be able to send anything, no matter how small.  Wow.  That is going to be a big help.  I have tiny washers and screws... tiny hardware from parts like the front  turn signal lights, for example.  Thanks! 

I would think it'd be virtually impossible to mechanically abrade off all former plating.  That's one of the great things about plating - it gets everywhere.

Maybe it'd be worth the effort to chemically  "deplate" the cad/zinc.  Haven't checked, but maybe Caswell offers a kit.

Yet another decision point.🤔

I’d imagine they do but just an acid bath will work. Vinegar or muriatic acid will work but it still takes a lot of time and wire brushing and will still need abraded to give a nice surface if there is pitting.


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I've struggled with the idea of replating vs buying new hardware.  I'm not restoring to factory original so I can use any hardware I like.

It's just the process of how many, what head style, what diameter, what length,  and what plating option that keeps me from going all new. 

Most platers will acid dip/pickle before plating and some like the plater motorman7 uses also have a blasting process they use ( I believe). You don't really need to get all the zinc off but it can accumulate on threads and things and make tolerances tight. If it's not all gone, new zinc lays right down over the old zinc if it's properly degreased

22 hours ago, Patcon said:

Most platers will acid dip/pickle before plating and some like the plater motorman7 uses also have a blasting process they use ( I believe). You don't really need to get all the zinc off but it can accumulate on threads and things and make tolerances tight. If it's not all gone, new zinc lays right down over the old zinc if it's properly degreased

 

I see.  So, full removal is not necessary.  Interesting. 

I took some pics of the hardware that has only been glass bead blasted and run through the tumbler for 2 hours:

  

  

  

  

  

This is maybe half of the fasteners.  Doing them with a wire wheel by hand would be a lot more time.  And holding them would be crazy difficult as so many of them are small.  I am hopeful I don't have to resort to wire brushing all of these.  

I have one more treatment in mind to try out in the tumbler.  I bought some corn cobb media and have some "semi chrome" metal polish.  When I get all of the fasteners through the beading and stainless bit tumbling, I will try a batch in the corn cobb and metal polish.  Theory is that the corn cobb will pick up the polish and act like little polishing rags.  Will just have to try it out.  However, I may not need to prep the fasteners further to get close to the factory finish?  It is hard to say without some first hand experience, I guess.

Another NOS item I had laying around (pics of original relay first):

  

New Old Stock Relay:

      

 

Edited February 11, 20214 yr by inline6

I would be careful about adding waxes and grease to polish your raw metal! Some platers get really upset with contaminants on the parts. Also it could affect finished plating. I wouldn't bat an eye at plating any of those parts. I have done some plating in my shop and have found the parts to be nice and shiny if they are prepped to the level you already have.

I admit I haven't kept up with this thread, I read from the newest up. 

I've had great results with this stuff on aluminum and some steel too.

 

The steering rack was the target of attention today.  New, aftermarket outer tie rods will be replaced with NOS original ones that I have.  Boots were available new from Nissan, so these are getting replaced:

    

When I removed the boots, I was surprised to see this:

I have never seen these labels before...

  

The inner tie rods are in great shape.  I was able to lift the rack off the work bench by apply lifting force to the end of the threaded ends (both sides).  I thought, maybe these were replaced by the prior owner, but I don't know.  After taking them apart and examining the wear surfaces, I'd say they are not new.  That is another thing that is very odd - I've never seen inner tie rod ends on a 240z where the socket and nut were not welded together.  These are not, so I was able to remove them, clean everything meticulously, an examine the surfaces of the ball and socket.  So much for the gold stickers... And, what were they trying to say anyway?!

 

Garrett

Edited February 15, 20214 yr by inline6