A lot of the fasteners such as fender bolts are called out as cadmium plated. How close is zinc plating which can be done with a DIY kit? Or better to just bite the bullet and send them out for the genuine finish?
Caswell plating sells a zinc kit that allows you to dull down the zinc finish to mimic the duller cadmium finish. Jim Cowles of Shelby parts does cadmium plating. 920 434 3645
You will save untold amounts of time and money just buying the AMK fastener kit for your car.
I can see why he is going with original parts, #500033!
Agreed. But not an option.
OK to answer the original question zinc plating is not going to look right or last long. There are companies that will re - plate all your hardware. Generally they have a minimum charge for a quantity. This is how I restored my green GT-E because back then there was no AMK. In those days it cost me $50 for up to 25 pounds of hardware in a single finish. Cad 1 and bake is the finish for most of the bolts. Cad 2 and bake is cadmium plating with anodizing afterwards for the gold finish.
Refinishing included rust removal and paint removal. Back then I could go to the wrecking yard with my tools, they would charge something like $20 and let me take a gallon bucket full of hardware. There are no '68 Cougars in wrecking yards today.
The places I used back then are out of business due to EPA regulations. No idea what current prices would be but I am guessing X4 would be close. If you had a second '68 Cougar built at Dearborn with a similar build date you could use it as a source for hardware.
Not looking quite right could be livable, but sacrificing durability doesn’t make sense. I have quite a bit of hardware available, hopefully enough that is nice enough to work.
We have a place here near Atlanta that does all the finishes described above- minimum is $150 - I am collecting a horde of items to plate all at once as I dont think I will hit the minimum weight for the $150 charge…one idea is to get multiple people and pool everything together and do it at once in one large order? If interested I can keep you in the loop on my time lines etc…downside would be keeping items separated etc…right now I am looking to do a batch of parts/bolts etc. for phosphate and oil, another batch of Cadium plating (Cad 1 bolts) and then zinc plate plus chromate which is the iridescent yellow as described in the FOMOCO AMK catalog…this will be for things light front turn signal housings…
Have you considered doing this yourself? I did the coil bracket for my GT-E with a minimal investment, though I already owned a blasting cabinet. I was surprised that it’s an almost brain dead easy process. And there’s no restricted chemicals like cadmium involved.
There are enough things that I can’t do, so I’m always looking for ways to do things myself.
Be careful about bead blasting as it changes the final finish to a replated fastner they call it “frosting” AMK talks about this in the beginning of their catalog.
Interesting, I’ll need to read up on that. Thanks for the tip.