69 Charger hood/trunk latches Zinc or Black?

[69rrgrabber]

Hi guys,

Heading to the plater tomorrow and not sure of the correct finish for some of my hardware despite much research so I would sure appreciate any help.  The trunk latch mechanism and striker appear to have been zinc, but not sure about up front, so here is the list:

Front hood release (attaches to hood) and bolts
Front hood striker and bolts
Hood release lever (inside grill) and bolts
Hood striker catch (behind grill) and bolts
Trunk latch and bolts  Zinc?
Trunk latch striker and bolts  Zinc?

Here are a few more for good measure:

Top bolt, brake booster plate  Zinc or Cad
Front shock washers Zinc or Cad
Rear shock lower mount washers and nuts?
Horn bolts


Thanks!
CAC

[bill440rt]

OK, I'll take a stab at this. 

Front hood release (attaches to hood) and bolts: The "hook" on the underside of the hood? Gray phosphate, and the bolts dark gray phosphate.
Front hood striker and bolts: The "loop" bolted to the hood? Painted body color.
Hood release lever (inside grill) and bolts: Gray phosphate, and the bolts dark gray phosphate.
Hood striker catch (behind grill) and bolts: Gray phosphate, and the bolts dark gray phosphate.
Trunk latch and bolts  Zinc?: Latch is sometimes zinc, and I've also seen phosphate.
Trunk latch striker and bolts  Zinc?: Attached to the underside of the deck lid? Sometimes I've seen them body color, other times they were zinc and the bolts dark gray phosphate.

Here are a few more for good measure:

Top bolt, brake booster plate  Zinc or Cad: Isn't that held with a nut? Should be gold cad.
Front shock washers Zinc or Cad: Zinc.
Rear shock lower mount washers and nuts?: Gray phosphate.
Horn bolts: Dark gray phosphate.

[69rrgrabber]

Yes I think I can run with that.  And will resist the urge to zinc everything!  So I guess that these plating people can do a light gray and a dark gray phoshate.  The options they gave me were zinc clear, zinc black, zinc yellow and black phosphate.  I should do the black phosphate on my own so that I can control the level of darkness or grayness.  I wonder how these home kits for phosphate hold up compared to the platers.

Thanks ,
CAC

[bill440rt]

I did most of my gray phosphate plating years ago right at home on the BBQ grille. Directions said you had to heat the solution up fairly hot.
Hood latches, brackets, rear drum backing plates, etc. Did a bunch of stuff.
I cleared the parts with a satin clear, this was before that RPM stuff came out. They still look new, and they were done well over 12 years ago. 

[69rrgrabber]

Do you have the kit from Caswell?  I read that they had pretty good stuff, althought the set up to do Zinc is pretty pricy due to the power source.  12 is a great run and I bet it will stay nice a lot longer if garaged

[bill440rt]

After all this time I honestly forgot where I got the kit from. But yes, the parts are holding up very well.
Here are some shots of these detail items. The shock hardware is just correct repro stuff.