"Gold" engine parts....
 

My 560 has a few components that are, err I should say were, gold in color. Such as the ABS module (not the cover though), the cruise actuator, idle air valve and maybe a couple other things.

Were these originally anodized? If so, has anyone restored these parts to original luster? And how so? Not familiar with anodizing, but it sounds like a submergence process into a liquid with some electricity involved.

It's the old cosmoline wax that was on all the aluminum components; not sure if there's a way to restore the wax though...

Actually it's cadmium plating.

+1

Eastwood sells products to restore the gold color.

It's indeed cad-plating and it does wear off with heat and age. You can restore the finish if you care to, but you can just clean up the parts to a high level as-is and they will look quite nice without the gold finish.

If you do go the route of re-finishing -- DO NOT get the "gold paint" types of products. Remove the part(s) you want re-finished and have them properly plated by a business that knows how to do the work. Get some references from your local hot-rodders as to who does good work.

Cheers,
Gerry

remove it
 

You can carefully remove the color with oven cleaner.

I've never heard of someone deliberately removing cad-plating.....

I dont want to. But if I want to prep the surface, I guess its one way. I will probably end up bead blasting the parts that I can and apply an enamel of some color.

remover
 

"I've never heard of someone deliberately removing cad-plating..... "

Way back when, in the custom bike business, some of our customers could only get a particular part in some ****ty color. Under the red or yellow was always plain metal color. Oven cleaner worked great. We didn't have any kind of blaster.

Its fairly cheap to have re-do. I have a friend who restores pagodas and 190SLs and he uses a shop that has a flat price. A 5 gallon pail of parts is like $70 to do, if it fits in the pail it gets plated at the same price. I wanted to send off a ton of stuff under the hood of my '87 but I haven't gotten to it.

This is also consistent with my own past experience with having parts for my 300SEL 6.3 cad-plated.

Cheers,
Gerry

Thats good to know. My biggest concern is the process. I do know know it. But I wonder how far I would have to prep things like the ABS pump housing, cruise actuator, etc.