[RA1John]

68-69 Axle & Part Finishes

Can anyone confirm the original finishes/colors for 68-69 Axles?
Bare cast housing with only rear facing side painted semi-gloss black?
Backing Plates, bare steel or...?

Thanks!

[dataway]

Hard question to answer, apparently the different plants did it different ways. If it's a show car best bet is to go by the accepted criteria in the judging points as seen in ... forget the organization, but the people that do all the Pontiac judging ... they have a list of things are supposed to be "correct".

Close as I can describe it is ... bare steel with a haphazard black paint job. If it was hard to get to, it wasn't painted. But also, they don't appear to deduct points for fully painted axles either, since some plants did a better job than others. If it's a rare RA car then it matters more than most of our "common" GTOs

[68ragtop]

I really struggled with that when painting mine. I think at the end of it all I came to the conclusion that painting the diff all black, or natural is generally considered correct because every car was a little different. Like data says, some cars just a dusting while upside down in assembly, others got more paint. So I don't think there is a fine line with how much.

But, if you go with the bare look, then in theory you should probably see the welding color marks & in reality see some "rust" which nobody is going to put on there suspension parts, so with that in mind they all end up over restored when they are clean as can be.

I have some pictures saved from a restoration shop that wend all out with natural steel, weld discoloration & partial black paint. Looks really cool, although I think the restorer went a little light with the black & had a bit to much natural metal showing on the parts.

I think thats why either way flys in judging. Could be a lot of black, or very little. So for me it came down to those rules & what did I want it to look like. I anguished for several weeks over this. I was very close to black backing plates, natural tubes, cover & cast differential housing. Several guys here did that & it looks nice.

I ended up going solid black so it didn't stand out too much against my frame & other solid black suspension parts.

[68ragtop]

Here some picts I found on a website a while back. Still over restored, but might be closer to what the cars looked like in assmebly minus the rust though that no doubt would have been on the bare parts?

But, if you go this route, the car should probably have all the overspray, undercoating, etc to go along with it?

Would like to see the secret of making welds look like this though..... Artist?

[Brewster]

That restoration looks great but wouldn't want to drive it after all that work.