Rear suspension restoration.

[August M. Heilig]

We had our suspension parts all blasted and cleaned up.
The color after blasting is a whitish gray color. According to the
restoration guide, the rear is to be a natural cast look. The drive
shafts also a natural finish look. Are there any suggestions, or
products out there to acheive this? (1967 corvette coupe).

Thank You,

August M. Heilig.

[Jerry Clark]

Re: Rear suspension restoration.

August:
Because no one has responded I will offer an OPINION
From my experience you will now have a more difficult time obtaining a correct appearance.
The blasting process opens the metals surface in the form of minute pits or pores that were not present when the parts were new. Cast pieces, sway bars, differential housings, spindles, bearing carriers and the like can benefit from a light application of grease thinned with a solvent like gasoline then wipe the excess away. This is far from optimal but it will improve the appearance.
Depending on how deeply the blasting etched these parts you may also try an acid wash. As a last resort Cast Blast paint may be your only recourse, more than acceptable for the street it will be flagged by a judge.
The steel pieces, half shafts, yokes, driveshaft will now be virtually impossible to return to any semblance of original appearance.
Sorry to be the messenger.
Best of Luck
jer

[Mike Sasser]

Re: Rear suspension restoration.

I wire brushed my half shafts and drive shaft after blasting and they look pretty good to me.

[Gary Beaupre (28818)]

Half shafts/driveshaft

August,

If you absolutely want the correct appearance on the half shaft and drive shaft you can have them retubed. You didn't say if you had a big block or a small block car, but small block half shafts were not shot peened and therefore they should show two circumferential weld seams at the ends and a longitudinal weld seam along the length. Shot peening, sand blasting and/or sanding will eliminate the appearance of these welds. Reubing is not cheap, but any good drive shaft shop should be able to do it. These days, the hard part is finding the correct seamed tubing, since the default these days is to use DOM (drawn over mandrell) seamless tubing, which wasn't used by GM in the 60's.

Gary

[ronnie robertson # 36786]

Cheap Tube Fix

I used a belt sander with a very fine paper to restore the tube look. Hold the sander perpendicular to the shafts to get a nice look. Then paint the shafts with matte finish clear Krylon, or if they are extremely bad (stained and pitted) use Rustoleum Stainless Steel paint. This is exterme, so don't do it if you going for points. But looks great for a street car.