Door striker and latch plating color?

[bergie33]

I am sending a bunch of parts off to get plated.  Are the door latch and striker usually done with a yellow color plating or with a clear/sliver color plating?  Mine are too nasty to tell what they were originally.  The screws all seem to be yellow plated, which seems odd if the striker and latch are clear/silver.  The car is Malaga if that helps.  The only pic of new latch/striker installs were Bill Williams and those were yellow, which looked good on his car.  Not sure if yellow or silver would look better with Malaga.  Help!

[stephers]

All silver, including the screws       Both the catch and the striker.

 

Thanks, Rick

[1936spyder]

What he^^^said. I’d take pictures of mine which are original and have never been replated, just detail-cleaned when I had my car repainted, but I can’t access my car right now unfortunately.

[tomphot]

BTW, when you buy new screws from W&N etc, they will be yellow.  In addition, the repair manual shows 2 different screws being used in the same spot, Hex vs Phillips 

 

[Conserv]

1 hour ago, tomphot said:

BTW, when you buy new screws from W&N etc, they will be yellow.  In addition, the repair manual shows 2 different screws being used in the same spot, Hex vs Phillips 

 

Tom,

 

Notice in your second photo, above, that, even though the photo is black and white, there is a color disparity between the components and the attachment hardware. Below is a photo (original plus enlarged version) that I took of my ‘76, as I was “retiring” the car from DD service in August 1983 — thus, the car was seven years old. At that point, the two Allen-head bolts certainly appear to be yellow zinc (more likely, yellow cadmium, but, for consistency, I’ll stick with the today-more-common zinc description). The two Phillips-head screws are some combination of dirty and oxidized. They could be clear or yellow zinc. Maybe the Allen-head bolts were yellow and the Philips head screws were clear. Or maybe W&N is correct, or maybe it varied from batch to batch! Exposure to air is a primary reason that plating oxidizes. Removing screws never-before removed often reveals the plating color at the time of original assembly.

 

I’ve found plenty of items, e.g., headlight buckets, hood hood-down bars, where the larger, “sheet metal” components are clear zinc while the fasteners and minor components are yellow zinc.

Again, protected areas better reveal the original plating. The third photo below, shows the end of my ‘76’s hood hood-down bar. Although the bar itself appears to be clear zinc, the jogged end and some of the surrounding hardware appears to be yellow zinc (blue circles). This photo is also part of my August 1983 series. Fast forward to 2012, when I’m disassembling the hold-down bar in the strip-down leading to the Big Re-Paint. The fourth photo below shows the same assembling coming apart. Although the 29 years separating the photos gave rise to a great deal more oxidation, the protected areas clearly show the same thing as the 1983 photo, a clear zinc bar (green circle) with a yellow zinc jogged end (blue circle). The Philips-head attachment screws, looking largely clear zinc in the 1983 photo, once removed and examined, were clearly yellow zinc within the “X” of the head and all over their threaded shafts. So they, like the jogged end, got yellow zinc treatment.

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

[bergie33]

All of the screws that I have for the door hardware are definitely yellow.  Whatever color I decide to have the latch and striker plated, the screws will end up being plated the same.  It just makes sense.

[Conserv]

9 hours ago, bergie33 said:

… It just makes sense…

 

It may make aesthetic sense, but BMW wasn’t trying to create picture-perfect vignettes for concours-lovers 50 years hence. They were a small struggling car manufacturer and they had one mission: get the cars sold and out the door. Paint the underside of the chassis? You’ve gotta be kidding! Paint the front and the back of those Lemmerz steel rims silver? Yeah, right!

 

So each owner must decide whether they wish to “perfect” a classic car, or restore to original. Given that I use modern finishes — modern paint rather than the horrible Glasurit metallic of the 1970’s, zinc rather than cadmium, and powdercoating in lieu of paint — I’m clearly choosing some level of “perfection”, and durability, over originality. No doubt: I’ve made choices moving me away from originality.

 

And each car owner gets to define how much they wish to improve upon the factory’s finish, which, by modern automotive standards, left much to be desired. Restore as you wish, but don’t assume that your 2022 wishes equal BMW’s priorities 50 years ago… ?

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

[AceAndrew]

I agree on the possible hardware finish variation.  However, even though the striker and latch would have been clear-plated, that yellow-zinc gooollllldddd is pretty nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I’m clearly choosing some sort of “perfection”, and durability, over originality." - Steve 

 

 

[Conserv]

25 minutes ago, AceAndrew said:

I agree on the possible hardware finish variation.  However, even though the striker and latch would have been clear-plated, that yellow-zinc gooollllldddd is pretty nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I’m clearly choosing some sort of “perfection”, and durability, over originality." - Steve 

 

 

Go for it, Andrew,

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

[bergie33]

Out of curiosity, does typical Electroplating that is done by a shop harm plastics that are attached to the metal?  I'm thinking of sending in a few parts, like the window lifting brackets that have the plastic rollers attached, but I don't want to ruin the rollers.

[Conserv]

44 minutes ago, bergie33 said:

Out of curiosity, does typical Electroplating that is done by a shop harm plastics that are attached to the metal?  I'm thinking of sending in a few parts, like the window lifting brackets that have the plastic rollers attached, but I don't want to ruin the rollers.

The items go in an acid bath first, so that might pose an issue for anything non-metallic.  But I don’t know for certain, and I’ve admittedly never tried to submit anything plastic or rubber.

 

I’ve had assembled items, such as hood hinges, seat frames, and seat sliders re-plated without disassembly, and they’ve generally turned out great. The two re-platers I used, both in Atlanta, insisted that all paint and overspray, and almost all dirt and grease, be removed before handing parts over for plating. But media-blasting before re-plating will produce a duller refinished surface. Chemical and by-hand cleaning are preferred.

 

I generally chase the threads on nuts and bolts both before and after the re-plating. When I do, nuts and bolts look and work like new.

 

There are sometimes surprises: items that look like they would turn out very glossy, but don’t, and items that look like they’d turn out pitted, but turn out almost chrome-like.

 

Below, a formerly disgusting and rusty hood hinge from my ‘61 F-350 pickup shocked the plater and me. The second and third photos show the before and after of an ‘02 headlight bucket. The hinge was not disassembled for plating; the headlight bucket was.

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

 

[stephers]

Talk to your plater but normally it does not hurt rubber or plastic but if you can get it off, all the better.  I am prepping a bunch of hardware and bits and pieces to get plated. I glass bead everything first, then run that through a vibrator with plastic pellets and a solution of water and the "secret " ingredient to start to smooth everything out and start to put a nice polish on them, then into a second vibrator with crushed walnut shells to really polish stuff up.   The better they look before going to the plater, the better that they come out in the end. 

 

and no offence but gold just does not look right on the door catches, my opinion

 

Thanks, Rick