Safe to yellow cadmium plate a drive shaft flange?

[CSRomney]

I’m sending a bunch of items to get yellow cadmium plating, I have my drive shaft spindle disassembled and I thought I’d throw them in with the other parts, is a this safe/good thing to do for the part?

I figured it would give it a little extra rust protection but I’m not certain.

[Cloggie]

I did mine, but it was done at a proper plating place that was used to doing structural pieces.

Personally, there has been a lot of noise over the years about hydrogen embrittlement with some saying that you should never do a part that takes any sort of load (bolts, shafts etc) without treatment. From what I read and heard, for the steel we use in our cars, we are pretty safe with plating.

I note the following from Wikipedia:

"Steel with an ultimate tensile strength of less than 1000 MPa (~145,000 psi) or hardness of less than HRC 32 on the Hardness Rockwell Scale is not generally considered susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement"

Most steels used in car manufacture (and I specifically exclude things like crankshafts, rods etc) are around 400-500 mpa, and I do not see that part being made out of anything "special". Certainly with the pounding I have done on mine to get the studs in/out, I would have expected if it was some sort of special steel it would have broken.

But this is just my lowly opinion, it is up to you, but I feel totally safe with mine.

D.

[CSRomney]

Thanks for the information, much appreciated.

[PeteKz]

Speaking from the perspective of a mechanical engineer, hydrogen embrittlement is potentially a problem in certain high-strength alloys. The stuff our cars are made of, with the exception of a few highly stressed bolts, are much more endangered by "rust embrittlement" than hydrogen! I'd cadmium plate or zinc plate anything on the car except what goes inside the engine. Most of that stuff was plated in the first place anyway. Or should have been.