gas, oil caps

[wharriss]

What is the best way to make the type metal in the gas, oil caps, and front and rear hood latches look new(er)?
Thanks for suggestions.
Rich Harriss

[John Z Goriup]

These caps were originally Cadmium plated, just like the hood latch you show in the photo. They are made of the same metal, i.e. steel. Cad plating is a sacrificial coating and has always been applied mainly for corrosion protection.

The problem you will encounter however, is that when your car was originally built in the late '60s or early '70s there were minimal rerstrictions on the plating industry, and parts were cad-plated for max. protection, and could be re-plated in the same manner, whereas today's highly restricted and EPA controlled plating industry is unable to match the original plating. Today's clear cad re-plate will result in a soft, relatively ineffective, easily abraded, dull gray coating which will most likely be a big disappointment. ( See attached photo of my steering column bearing support I had done a couple of years ago). Note: Most platers today also impose a minimum charge of $ 100.00 to $150.00 so bring more than just two oil caps or pool your parts with others to make the minimum.

Same with yellow ( gold) cad-plating. Today's has lost all its gold-like shine and comes out a dull, non-reflective, varigated greenish yellow which looks nothing like what was installed on original longhoods. (I'd love to know how new Wurth fasteners have that wonderful, hard, shiny yellow finish that seems to last and last ).

Another approach may be to contact Eastwood and check out their "kitchen-table" cad-plating kits (and cadmium-like spray-paints).

Good Luck

PS: whenever I post a negative tale of woe like the one above, someone usually posts how they had far more satisfying results involving similar circumstances just to prove me wrong
....and because they probably don't live in California. Maybe this time too somebody will chime in and tell us where there is a plater who can still deliver good, old-style, quality, clear and gold cad-plating.
JZG

[gsjohnson]

There are several places, even in EPA burdened California that will apply Yellow Chromate over Zinc duplicating that look and protecting it from rust. You can work on the amount of gold/yellow color result by the amount of chromate color added as well. Last I checked, it was a $100 a vat for this process.