[70post]

Time (meaning deterioration of the plating) and beadblasting "wipes out" the distinctive flake appearance on these. It all depends on how "weak" the galvanizing was before you worked on the shields. I've dealt with many many pairs of these with the original galvanizing. How much of the distinct flake pattern is left varies quite a bit.

We had a set of gas tank straps hot dip galvanized in Chicago a few years back....didn't turn out very nice and not even close to the small/"tight"/smooth flake pattern you see on the originals.

Will be interesting to see what results anyone gets.

I believe the process was the stamping places bought ROLLED SHEETS of galvanized steel and the parts were stamped out from that....not galvanized AFTER they were stamped out. The soft zinc aided in the stamping process...acted as a sort of "lubricant" and helped prevent some wear and tear to the tooling/dies.

I just looked closely at a pair of NOS Abody gas tank straps I have here....obvious scratching THROUGH the galvanized finish in areas where severe forming took place as well as the cut edges being shiny. Probably evidence of this on the disc shields where the spot welds are (done AFTER the galvanized sheet was stamped attach the center ring to the shield.

Lots of alternator fans exhibit the same properties.


R68GTO....that looks like a very tight flake pattern of galvanizing under the sticker.....it's sure not consistent enough to be regular zinc plating IMO.