Parkerizing
 

I am working on the hatch latches and handle assembly. I've gotten everything pretty well cleaned, and I have run them through an electrolysis bath to de-rust the moving parts. I would like to keep them preserved, but it doesn't appear practical to paint the moving parts. I ordered some parkerizing solution and did a test on a couple on non moving parts, just to see how things would come out. I'm not sure if the latch hardware originally has some type of plating, they we pretty rusty, but in some areas they had a silver color that hadn't rusted.

Thought I would post just to see what other people thought, and if there were any better ideas for keeping the hardware in good working order. The piece in the center of the picture is untreated as a reference point.

Re: Parkerizing
 

Eastwood sells a zinc plating kit, works pretty good. I know that those two latch pieces were plated and or painted white originally

Re: Parkerizing
 

Parkerizing is a good way to go with a lot of parts originally finished in this manner. I've had a lot of parts parkerized and zinc coated. It's rather economical (and easy) to drop off a box of dirty parts to a local plater for refinishing. They come back looking brand new. A local plater here gets ~$100/batch for parkerizing and that will do hood hinges, hood latches, striker plates, tow hooks, and a boat load of nuts and bolts.