[69gtocv]

Another vote for silver cad. I went out and looked at my 68 LeMans with 31k miles on it. Surprised I had never noticed before that it wasn't painted black. Kinda grungy, but definitely silver cad with no paint

[north]

Maybe a 68 only thing, I've looked at all my 69's including photos of dozens of cars I've previously owned over the years and all were black paint and clearly original finish. Perhaps it was a early vs late thing in 68 or just a supplier variation?

[Jerry H.]

Originally Posted by J GLASGO

I know for a fact 66-67 ps cars had plated pulley. Manual steering painted. Here's a 30000 mile 66 we are working on.

John, I owned a 30k mile, untouched 66 GTO several years ago. PS and Air and it had a cad plated pulley, no paint.

[north]

Was it perhaps a very early car?

[north]

Several of my cars are early enough to have the short water pump version but not earliest car is end of October build, maybe it was only a burning off of residual 68 parts? Like in late August or September production?

All the cars I’m referring to are also AC and PS equipped.

[69gtocv]

Bringing back an old thread, but I had commented last year that my 68 LeMans had a zinc water 819 pump pulley. Been cleaning up the motor for an engine paint re-shoot while the front sheetmetal is off. Amazed how clean the pulley looked when I took it off, but check out how nice it is after an hour in Evaporust! It's staying the natural zinc finish

[68gtoMN]

So to add more heft to the Cad plated pulley discussion, 68PonGTO (Scott) and his brother visited me on their way back from the GTO Nationals this year (held in Wisconsin Dells) and we spent a couple of hours chatting and looking through my stash of parts at home and in storage. I really enjoyed it, even gave Scott a deal on a timing cover. While chatting, Scott noticed the pulley on a completely original 68 350 I have and pointed out it was Cad finish. It WAS. I then pointed to a box of pulleys on the floor and again Scott pulled out another Cad pulley. At home, I found another!. I need to go take pictures of them for this thread but they are ABSOLUTELY Cad plated. The one on the engine appears to have never been off and the underside is SHINY.

I am solidly in the camp of Cad plating on this pulley as I have AT LEAST 3 in my collection of 68 parts and another entire box to find/review. I'd not be surprised to find more.

Pictures as I can take them.

[4zpeed]

Originally Posted by 68gtoMN

Pictures as I can take them.

......



Frank

[68gtoMN]

Originally Posted by 'ol Pinion head

Most 9778808 wp pulleys I've pulled originally had a silver cad finish. These were installed on '66 models. The cad plating fades out with time to gray, the finish can even look like a very washed out (faded) black painted pulley. By examining where the fan spacer bolted up, one can see a circle that is still silver cad finish.
The pulley in question... "819" wp pulleys. Every original I've pulled was black painted. Have easily had three-four dozen "819"s, still have several nice used in the pallet section, never had any hint of a gold gad type finish.
In cleaning out dealership stocks, have had a bunch of NOS "819" wp pulleys that were silver cad plated. Have an NOS "819" currently in the pulley stacks which still has a wired on manilla tag from GM Parts Distribution. To install it on anything close to a Concours restored car, I would glass bead & refinish @ 90% gloss black.

Other silver cad factory finish WP pulleys:
In the late 90's hauled in a '63 Tripower GP. It's original wp pulley was silver cad finish. Original timing cover, PS, & pulleys. Have ran across this same part number wp pulley when boneyarding, often pulling it & setting it aside when pulling original water pump cores.

For '67 & '68 models, factory V8 AC cars typ received the "886" WP pulley. Have had several NOS, & ALL were a gloss black. Eventually that gloss black dulls. Have pulled & sold dozens of "886" wp pulleys, as well as matching crank pulleys, all were black, no hint of silver cad underneath the black.

In manual strg stock, have a complete '68 V8 manual steering pulley bracket & pulley set, bought in another dealership parts buyout. Both pulleys look NOS except for slight imprint where the fan spacer was bolted on. At the time of the buyout, I thought the manual strg set interesting. The prev dealership principal then relayed to me, that occasionally, he would get a brand new manual steering late '60's A-body in a dealership trade. On a few occasions, he had one of his mechanics swap on factory PS in order to make a sale. Those '68 manual pulleys are gloss black. Have numerous NOS '70, 70 F-body, & '71 up WP & crank pulleys & all are a gloss black, just like the area under the reinforcement ring on '68+ crank pulleys.

Sooo....I know this guy who has some original pulleys ending in 9786819 (ok, maybe that's the entire part number) where the original finish is visible. Unlike some others who have collected dozens (roger), this other guy only has about 7-8 on hand. Fortunately for us, I know this guy with the 7-8 aforementioned pulleys. I also happen to have been present when "he" looked through one of his boxes again this evening. I also happened to have had my camera handy when "he" was going through his boxes.

I would like to report that of the four of the 9786819 pulleys pulled from this one box, two were distinctly plated (Cad or Zinc - I'm not the plating expert here), another showed some plating through an obvious over-paint and the other was indeterminate, being both very rusty and with clear signs of paint. That makes 75% of the pulleys from this single box as having been plated.


Interestingly, the fully plated pulley appears goldish on the exposed surfaces, but clearly a silver color where not exposed to elements.


The one with an over-paint is soaking in evaporust overnight to see what happens.

Enjoy.

[68gtoMN]

Here is one of the pulleys after an overnight soak in evaporust (not rinsed, just pulled from solution). You can see the plating peaking out now in greater areas.

[68gtoMN]

After removing pulley from evaporust (24 hours) and rinsing/wiping, it is evident that this was plated and not painted first. Looking at the grooves in the pulley (least wear) one can see the silver plating clearly. Oddly, much like my other pulley with a clean surface (see earlier post), the mount points and grooves appear silver while there is a goldish hue on other surfaces. This is really, really interesting (to me). Will post pics soon - visiting family out of town now.

[68gtoMN]

Your intrepid pulley reporter has another installment in this "what color were the water pump pulleys on 1968 GTOs" thread.

First, here is a picture of the pulley I referenced in the post above. Look at the pulley grooves to see silver plating and some green/gold coloring also on the other groove.

Next, after leaving my mostly painted pulley in Evaporust over the weekend (i visited family in Chicago), I believe that this pulley was originally plated, not painted. The first clues were signs of plating at the water pump interface (backside of pulley) and under the fan spacer on the front side of the pulley). After rinsing off/wiping off what remained after sitting in this solution, the telltale signs of plating are on display UNDER The paint. It's more evident in person, but there is plating under the paint.

So...what do I concluded in my small sample? Each pulley was plated first, even if paint was applied later. I do not believe Pontiac would expend the time, effort and cost to first plate a pulley to then paint it afterwards.

Thoughts?

[4zpeed]

Sooo... after reading through this a few times my thoughts are it is possible all 819's were "treated/plated" but by different suppliers looking at the examples. There seems to be a wide rang in the appearance. All of the NOS examples mentioned seem to be plated. Some pulleys look untreated, could this be a reason some were painted?

I agree there would be no need to do both and PMD would certainly not have. This is the best theory I can muster using my meager detective skills.




Frank