Factory cadmium plated parts

[ROENG]

Hi,

as stated in the welcome section I am restoring my imported S2 2+2. I finished stripping down the car some weeks ago and all parts were classified and stored. While working on the body shell, I want to send all the parts, which need plating, to the plater. Because the parts are going to be cadmium plated and the plater only does it once or twice per quarter, I want to make sure that as much parts as possible are sent to the plater the first time. Therefore I listed all parts from the suspension, which I think were cadmium plated by the factory. I used the factory fit for series 2 and several forum posts as a reference, but I am not 100 % sure I got all parts listed. The picture below shows the SNG illustration, which I modified a little bit. All parts marked green should be sent to the plater. The attached list shows the part-number from the parts catalogue, the name I gave them, the number in the parts catalogue and the passivation colour. The yellow passivation gives the components the golden touch, which is often refered to in several posts. Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction if some parts were not cadmium plated by the factory or I missed some parts.
Maybe there is already such a list and I just didn´t find it. The work for the list with the other components fitted to the car is in progress.

Thank you in advance for your advice.

best regards Robert
]

[JerryL770]

Hello Robert,

I'm no expert in this area but work with an E-type restorer nearby.

First, I cannot enlarge your pictures because you have saved them using postimage.org. That does not work. You need to use postimage.cc (see here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10280 )

Second, I think no parts are cadmium plated and should not be as cadmium is very toxic and was banned from most plating purposes a long time ago.

Most suspension components will be nickel plated and if you want a good quality, durable finish an undercoat of copper plating improves things.

Other items, brackets, linkages, bolting etc., can be bright zink plated (BZP) and you would buy nuts and bolts so finished. BZP for brackets/carb linkages etc. can be finished in clear or yellow passivation

Do not plate the torsion bars as the plating makes it very difficult/impossible to fit the splines. I think it's OK to plate the lower wishbone but we do not plate the other end anchor bracket, just blast clean and paint.

HTH. Jerry

[Heuer]

You can enlarge them now - I made an edit.

[JerryL770]

Robert,

Of the items you have coloured green, we would not plate the upright or steering arm (paint black) but the others can be plated. I would certainly not plate the stub axle or hub as you will never get the bearings on/in.

We do plate the upper and lower wishbones and their pivot shafts. Bolting etc. purchased from SNGB will be BZP finished. Probably cheaper to purchase new shims but BZP plating will work. We plate the antiroll bar drop links.

Suggest you do not plate item 19, torsion bar bracket as it makes it very difficult to fit, move around the torsion bar splines to set up the front ride height. We paint them black.

[mgcjag]

Hi Robert...have a look at this blog by one of our forum members Chris Vine it is full of detail of a S2 restoration and will show a lot of information you need ( section front suspension)...front uprights and steering arms would be plated from the factory ....Steve
http://etype.chrisvine.com/category/reb ... uspension/

[JerryL770]

...front uprights and steering arms would be plated from the factory ....Steve
http://etype.chrisvine.com/category/reb ... uspension/

Shows how much I (don't) know

I stand corrected

[ROENG]

Thank you all for your replies and thank you David for edting the link.

I will have a detailed look at the blog of Chris Vine, which is a very good source, and update the parts list and post it, if there is interest.

Maybe we can keep a long story short. Are there any plated parts, expect chrome plated parts, on the S2 or E in general, which were not cadmium plated? I am thinking in particular of door latches, brackets and such parts.

Thanks in advance.

best regards

Robert

[RichardMichaelOwen]

I cad plate nearly the entire suspension except for the roll bar.

Lately they have been painting a coat of clear too after assembly.

[RichardMichaelOwen]

Here is how it looks after clearcoat. I found this later car had the shorter bolt holding the heat shield in gold cad.

[ROENG]

The suspension looks very good. Do you know why they gave it a coat of clear? Protection of getting dull?

To get an idea which parts on the car left the factory cad plated, other plated or bare, I searched for a technical solution to identify them. I found out, that the RFA-analysis is exactly what I am looking for. With this analysis it is possible to find out the plating material, material under the plating material etc. without destroying the part or changing the surface of the part. So I sent a query to a environment management company who have such an analyser and they are willing to do the analysis end of August.

Maybe a bit of an overkill for just plating parts, but then I will know for sure. So if you have a part you would like to have analyzed, let me know and I will take the part to the company too.

Best regards

Robert

[Series1 Stu]

I'm surprised that you can get anything cadmium plated these days. I thought it's use was severely restricted to special military applications where conditions are particularly hostile. Even then we are specifying less toxic alternatives.

Personally, I would never have anything cadmium plated for my car. A good zinc plate and clear passivate is all you need. Don't scrimp on the plating spec. and the parts will outlast you.

Cadmium is too dangerous to use for what amounts to a hobby. It attacks just about every part of the human body and I think it is unfair to expect anybody to put themselves in harm's way for the sake of getting the correct factory specified finish on a few car parts.

We now have a ban on hexavalent chromium which puts Alocrom 1200 (Alodine to our friends across the pond) on the naughty list for aluminium parts too.

Regards

[Jeremy]

I'm with you Stuart. Cadmium is nasty stuff. Goodness knows what the guys who plated all our hardware originally were exposed to.

[Heuer]

On our trip around India I was astonished at the number of places offering cadmium plating, especially as they were amongst food shops and eateries. Many places had the chemicals in open drums on the streets thronged by locals and tourists.

There are lots of places in the US who still offer commercial cad plating, many in small towns. It is de rigueur for quality E-Type restorations and a must for concours entrants over there.

[Series1 Stu]

Well, concours is what it is but I'd rather drop a point or two and avoid such nasties. The demand drives the supply. Possibly as reprehensible as rhino horn and ivory trades.

While I'm not a tree hugger by any stretch of the imagination we need to be more responsible in such matters.

Regards

[cactusman]

I would agree...cadmium plating for car restoration belongs in the past. However cadmium plating was not banned for fear of the exposure that those doing the plating might get. Here in the UK any workers would be protected from direct contact with any soluble cadmium compounds as they would be when plating chromium or nickel. The same may not apply in India of course. The bulk metal itself is unreactive and relatively harmless unless ground to a dust and breathed in where cadmium causes all sorts of issues including kidney disease. Soluble cadmium compounds are very toxic...but so are compounds of chromium, nickel and others... The issue with cadmium, and mercury and lead and several other heavy metals, is what happens when the parts containing it are disposed of....and for cadmium it was predominantly rechargeable batteries. Dumped, the cadmium is gradually released into water and can then contaminate soil and crops. Interestingly tobacco takes up cadmium particularly well so smokers are routinely breathing in cadmium in the smoke....and cadmium is absorbed well by the lungs....

[PeterCrespin]

It is de rigueur for quality E-Type restorations and a must for concours entrants over there.

.

Got chapter and verse for that David? I'm always amazed how much is not judged. Championship class is the ultimate, but even there I'm not sure they go metallurgical on you if it looks correct-ish and clean. I know cad looks different to BZP et al, but not drastically so.

As for the OP, I think parts 42 and 44 were never plated, just runny semi-gloss black (same as the drop links) but the rear lower fulcrum mount was cad and that seems to have been missed out.

Pete

[Heuer]

Got chapter and verse for that David?

http://www.jcna.com/library/tech/e-type1.pdf

[PeterCrespin]

http://www.jcna.com/library/tech/e-type1.pdf

I thought that would be your source, but I don't read anything in there about suspension David. In theory this may be due to not having had coffee yet this morning, but I think suspension is missing because it isn't actually judged.

It's neither here nor there in the context of this overall discussion about nice restorations, but if true it means that cad plate on the suspension at least, is AFAIK a non-issue for JCNA concours.

[Heuer]

Don't know anything about concours Pete, I only know that commercial Cad plating is relatively easy to get done in the US but difficult in the EU. The JCNA guide does mention the various parts that are cad plated and judged accordingly. Odd the suspension is missing but having never entered a competition I have no idea what is required.

[ROENG]

Thank you all for the many answers.

So far I have not thought about the consequences of cadmium coating. Thanks, Stuart, for pointing that out. I will deal with the material more intensively and then decide which type of coating I will choose.

As far as I know cadmium coating is not prohibited, but the requirements have become stricter. That's why not many companies do this for private individuals anymore. The main application seems to be aviation, as the effort to comply with the requirements still pays off here.

Thanks also to David and Peter for discussing concours. Although I do not intend to keep the restoration to concours standard, I try to stay as close as possible to the original.

On 24. 08 I have the date for the XRF analysis. In the meantime I have almost finished the parts list with dimensions and pictures, so that I can request a quotation for the coating. I'll get a quote for cadmium coating and one for zinc coating. The decision may be made for price reasons alone. I will also ask the companies how the supply chain for cadmium coating is, including waste treatment. If it turns out that there is serious danger for the environment, this species is definitely out of the running.

I'll keep you posted.