Trailing arm refinishing?
 

I searched on plating and found lots on spring plate plating but what are guys doing to their trailing arms? Yellow zinc? powdercoat? Rattle can?

I am going to powdercoat most of my rear suspension, just removed it over the weekend.

polish

I left the trailing arm as-was. The bare aluminium looks nice, there's no rust problem, the part doesn't get that dirty, and it is not particularly visible either (e.g. through the wheelwells).

I polished a cast swing arm on a motorcycle once. It look great for a while and then it looked like crap. I'm planning to grit blast mine and leave them like that.

Simple cleaning of the aluminum version was all that was needed ( remove cosmoline) to look good....I presume we're not talking steel piece.

Wil

Has anyone ever painted their trailing arms? MichiganMat--how did you polish yours?

The trailing arms are pretty soft metal-- you could polish them, or send them to be polished, like Gunnar Racing does, but by the time you get done beating on them, dropping them, slamming them into the torsion bar tube, scratching them with the spring plate, jacking them up, getting grease on them from the CV joints, heating them with a torch to install bearings or monoballs, and just generally abusing them, you'll be happy that they are UNDER the car and not sitting on your coffee table at home.

Nor would I paint or powdercoat them. If a crack develops, you want to be able to see it clearly, and remember, they are under the car. If you drive off-track they're going to get scratched and beat up.

I say pressure wash them, scrub them with a scotchbrite and call them cool.

I cleaned mine up until they looked nice and then sprayed them with clear enamel (Rustoleum, Sp?) I thought that would make them easier to clean when on the car and hopefully prevent corrosion for awhile.

Jeeeez John...you make so much sense it kills me! I was going to powdercoat mine clear.

Anybody have any pictues????

Here's a pic to show what the brush can do
 

Just a few seconds with the wire brush-wow what a diff. I'll post a few pics when I'm done.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1113879562.jpg

If I had mine off again, I'd do that baking soda blast I think. Otherwise, power wash & Scotchbright or somethng like Jon T above. Something that doesn't take much time... they ARE under the car...

I cleaned mine in a parts washing tank and rubbed them down with Linseed oil and Rottenstone... no wait, that was something else....

Don't use a steel wire wheel on them. The steel particles will embed themselves in the soft aluminum and rust, making the arm look worse.

A good point -- use brass. Or if that is too soft (unlikely) you can find stainless steel brushes too (tho they might still rust depending on how 'stainless' they are).

I just went through the same thing with mine...

Started with the wire brush on the drill - WOW that looks pretty COOL !! Then took them to the bead blaster to get all the nooks & crannies - WOW that looks even better ! I wound up buying a rattle can of metal etching primer and semi-gloss black rattle can from a Savage auto paint shop and the final product looked pretty awesome ! Sorry I don't haev any photos with me here, but I'll try to post a thread of some of it later this week....

I thought the semi-gloss black would hide some road gunk plus be fairly easy to wipe down....

here's the finished product waiting for installation
 

Installed ERP's monoballs, polished with a wire brush, wiped down with thinner and then sprayed 3 coats of Eastwoods Diamond Cote clear coat. Looks good now but we'll see how they do after a few track events.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1114236022.jpg http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1114236084.jpg

Polish them? Paint them? They're going to look like crap in a week....

I just washed the worst of the dirt off so they'd be easier to handle while pressing in the bushings. (Trust me, they were filthy when they came out.)


The only reason I plated my spring plates was for rust protection.

Ok Debbie Downer! You're probably right but damm(*&t they'll look good for a few hours/days until I drive it. Its just hard to put a dirty part back onto a car while its all apart.

It'll be easier to clean if its polished.

No comment on whether this is worthwhile or not...