Trailer Hinges: How To Refinish

[dadiOH]

It looks good, can't see anything obvious although there are a couple of darker spots near the bottom at the edges of the right raised portion that might be suspicious. If the raised portion around the spots can't be knocked off it looks good to go.

Nestork sugested nickel plating. A good suggestion. Another alternative, if the items are small enough, you could hot dip galvanize them. I'm not talking about zinc electroplate, I mean dipping in molten zinc which is easily melted on a gas stove.

Either will protect very well unless the coating is breached. Which it will be at the hinge knuckles; about all you can do there is apply some oil once in a while.

One thing I wouldn't do is use whatever you used before. I've been wondering about that. You said it was clear but turned black. Red rust is reduced to black "rust" by acid. Could your clear stuff have been acidic? If so, I wonder if it remained so after drying? And if it did, how did new rust form for it to reduce? Was it air/moisture permeable? Was it supposed to be primed/painted? If so, was it to act sort as a "court of last resort" if the paint barrier was breached? Understand, I have no idea, just wondering.

[willshak]

Rustoleum Professional Cold Galvanizing Compound - Silver

[DerbyDad03]

Val-Oil is what I used. I just found an old a.h.r post where I asked for opinions on it, but no one responded. It was back in March '09, so the parts were redone a little over 5 years ago. The Val-Oil was recommended by a guy in an independent paint store.

Like I said, the parts looked really good when they were first done, but now, besides the rust, the finish is peeling off in sheets. Now that the parts are off and I can see them in good light, I'll take back the "black" coloring comment. It's more like dark brown/grey, as shown here:

I'm going to try the RustOleum Cold Galvanizing Compound. It can't do any worse. If I was going to consider the whole nickel plating or hot dip galvanizing route, I'd just drop the $100 bucks and buy all new hardware from HaulMark.

Thanks for sticking with me on this one. While I was searching for my old post I came across another thread where I asked about rust back in '09 and you participated in that thread also. You're really into this rust thing aren't you? ;-)

[DerbyDad03]

Bought it last night. :-)

[willshak]

OK. Good Luck. Let us know how it works out (in a couple of years). :-)

[The Daring Dufas]

I've use something similar by another manufacturer to help protect steel parts in a cooling tower. ^_^

TDD

[nestork]

I would have at least found out how much nickel plating your parts would cost before buying that cold galvanizing compound. You might have found that the nickel plating would only be a few dollars more, and you KNOW nickel plating is gonna work well. There's no question in my mind about that.

[trader4]

Aside from the cost to nickel plate, which I suspect isn't going to be cheap, what happens to the hinge clearances necessary for rotation when you add metal?

[N8N]

I suspect that anything is only going to last a couple years anyway. Unles s the hinge pins are removable, there is no way to coat/plate them with any thing, and even if they are, there will be wear between the hinge pieces an d the pins eventually developing corrosion. The only set and forget it fix is a set of stainless hinges, or hinges made from some other corrosion res istant metal.

Even an excellent job will still result in brown rust dust creeping out in the actual working areas of the hinge after a while unless it's religiously oiled.

nate

[dadiOH]

Electroplating adds way less than a RCH. Additionally, there is always some slop built into the hinge.

[dadiOH]

I live for rust. A day without rust is like a day without sunshine...without a bird's song...without a lover's touch...without a cooling breeze.

Fortunately(?) there are few rust free days for anyone :(

[dadiOH]

You can buy zinc for about $2.00/lb.

[Robert Green]

Thanks for the pointer. Just put it on my Home Depot shopping list. Apparently the "magic" of the product is that it contains lots of powdered zinc. It will be interesting to see how it holds up. Seems to require a pretty clean and well-prepped surface for maximum adhesion and that's sometimes a problem with items that are difficult to clean well before painting.

On a slightly related subject I was talking to an Army surgeon this weekend at barbeque held by my wife's old USAR unit. He was really pissed that the Army was forcing them to use Pakistani made stainless steel surgical instruments because he's already had one break during surgery - he named the scissor - it's used for cutting tendons - but I forgot what they're called.

His other complaint is how easily much of the foreign-made stainless steel equipment develops discoloration spots that never appeared on American-made surgical tools. The perils of going with the lowest bid, I suppose.

[DerbyDad03]

You might want to put it on your Lowe's shopping list. My local HD only carries the Cold Galvanizing Compound which is flat grey, not silver. My local Lowe's carries Bright Galvanizing Compound, which, going by the cap cover, does appear to the more silver than grey.

I cleaned up my hinges and other trailer parts yesterday. I'll be using the Bright compound tonight. I'll post some pictures when I'm done.

[DerbyDad03]

Here's a before and after picture.

Before, just a hinge...

After, mainly a hinge, but also a cam holder and closure bar clamp in the bottom left. The parts were refinished with the Bright Galvanizing Compound after all of the old finish (Val-Oil) and rust was removed with a wire wheel on a bench grinder.

As you can see, the parts are more of a bright gray than the normal silver you'd expect to see as hinges on a trailer. I also cleaned up the rusty carriage bolt heads and sprayed them. At 85 - 90 cents a piece at HD I didn't feel like replacing all of the bolts required (24) when all they needed was a quick cleaning with the wire wheel and then a quick spray with the compound.

Regarding the scaling you mentioned, one of closure bar clamps (the one shown in the picture, in fact) had considerable scaling which, as you pointed out, did not come off with the wire wheel. It will be interesting to see if that one acts any differently than the other parts. It is subject to more moisture being on the bottom and so close the ground. It was by far the rustiest of all the parts.

We'll now just wait and see how the compound holds up on the various parts, especially the parts subject to movement, like the lock clasp and hinges.

Thanks again for the advice.