Correct finish for spindles

Playing with some right now - the heat treatment gives a flat dark gray finish to the cast surfaces and of course you have the highlighted/shinny machined surfaces

Here is a picture of one from a 69 Shelby I'm helping with

We could use some help from ex-Ford engineers on this one. They appear to have been quenched in oil or some other agent after forging or tempering, then machined. Jeff's example shows what the post-machining looks like. The finish is particularly hard to remove and once it's gone it's not easy to replicate. This color match was made by mixing two POR colors and then baking the finish on for half an hour. It would be great if someone has an original with the intact color for comparison against these restorations.

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................It would be great if someone has an original with the intact color for comparison against these restorations.

Have a nicely colored one I cleaned yesterday (from a CJ I'm doing half way) will see if I can get some pictures this next week. Very flat and not real dark are my first observations

On second thought here is a shot of the original spindles on my 69 Boss that show the color and finish (they are oiled) Car has 30K on the odometer. Sorry for the rust and grime. Finish IMHO is pretty close to the one I redid above

The bottom is a NOS service replacement earlier spindel

Jeff - I think the finish on the later cars is darker than the finish on the 65-66s. Do you have any early examples?

Dave:

The finish in Jeff's pics is consistent with what I have seen on the early cars too. Here's an original off a '65, simply cleaned up:

Quote from round2K

Jeff - I think the finish on the later cars is darker than the finish on the 65-66s. Do you have any early examples?

The bottom one above is a 67 I believe