Hi,
I know I've thrown up some stupid questions in the past, so here's yet another one.
In resealing my final drive, I discovered the threads in the throat body for the threaded ring are buggered. They may be salvagable at some point, but I found a used final drive, supposedly with only 11k miles on it, that looks in great shape, so I'm planning on rebuilding that one (both are 32/9) and hoping for the best.
Here's the question: Any of y'all have a final drive that was painted as OE?
This one is apparently painted a matt silver, and I've never seen a painted one. Looks similar/same to the snowflakes color. Just don't know if I should vapor blast this paint off, or just leave it (it "looks" factory, and not rattle can). There is some minor pitting, that if it were bare aluminium I'd polish out, but if I indeed polished out these pits now, I'd have to repaint it, which I prolly wouldn't do, which means I'm looking at stripping, blasting, cleaning this whole thing.
If indeed some of these, esp in later years, came painted, I may just live with the minor pitting and just install it as is when I'm done. Anyway, I'm a little OCD when it comes to things being "original" and I wouldn't want to install a painted Final Drive if none ever actually existed, but I'm also wary if the paint is hiding anything conditionally related beneath, like aluminum corrosion or anything. I'm attempting to attach a photo showing my old FD (50k miles on it) in the vise, with the new purchase on the bench next to it.
