Okay, I've been a hemi dude all my life. I've two 1st series hemi cars, one a ragtop ('58 NYer) my mother bought new. I worked for a dealer 40 years ago as a kid and got to help prep record holding 426's... So, when I needed a tow-truck for my wife's Salt Flats racer, I finally had a semi-legitimate excuse to order a new Hemi Ram (last Sat morning), so I crawled underneath a few new Rams. Huh? The driveshaft was not painted on them. I called my IL race bud who bought a Hemi Ram a year ago and he looked under his--same rusty pos drive-shaft.

This is a bit disconcerting. I've been building vehicles all my life and have never seen an unpainted driveshaft... on anything. How many cents per truck can this save DC? For cryin' out loud! You can bet when mine arrives the first thing I'm going to do is paint that sucker.

What are these people thinking? Someone have a Benz to look at and see if the driveshaft is painted?

Just a lil' rant, sorry. All the best.

Ive been considering doing the same thing. but paint mine red to match my shocks[8D]

Driveshaft on my 99 grand cherokee was nickel plated. bling.
Keep it grimy and it won't rust. [:'(]

GM uses aluminum they look great polished.

I don't think Ford uses anything special, either. Wouldn't paint throw the balance off? If anything I'd powder coat it rather than paint it.

the coat of paint would be so light and thin the added weight would be negligable

powder is a lot thicker and heavier than paint, so if either was going to throw the balance off it'd be the powder coat. My driveshaft isn't painted either I don't think, but it's not rusting and it's 19 years old now.

Right, as noted, paint would not affect balance.

Power-coating would be great but not worth the hassle of removal and totally disassembling the shaft, at least not while it's new and easy to paint. My experience is that painted last just fine.

As to Ford, I was surprised in the early '90s when my wife replaced her Dakota with a successive pair of Explorers, that absolutely everything under the Fords was painted black or coated with an undercoat-like material from the factory. The front suspension uprights on the '91 Dak were unpainted, but that was all and I considered it typical Mopar quality, or lack of, at the time. I didn't expect to see something similar today. Oh, well... break out the Plasticote.

GM uses aluminum driveshafts? That's a surprise; in what? Specifically? I'd like to know, as a potential source of aluminum race car shafts, since they are usually rather expensive to fab.

Thanks.


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I just checked out the driveshaft on my Barracuda. No paint. If after 38 years it's still holding up, I'm not too worried about my Ram. (by the way as I parked the Ram in the driveway last night, I could have swore I heard my Barracuda say to it "when 38 years old you reach - look this good you will not Hmmmph.")

My 98 Jeep Cherokee (XJ type) came stock with a paint free DS. My 04 RAM 1500 (Hemi of course) also has a paint free DS. I wouldn't worry about the lack of paint since the surface rust keeps the deep rust out! [sm=headbang.gif]