Somewhere along the way, someone rattle-canned the hood latch assembly under my hood. I could have this media blasted, but that would likely remove the phosphate plating. Underneath it's all phosphate.

Are there any chemicals that can handle this or am I going to have to bite the bullet and have it blasted? Looks like some of the plating is gone anyway (rust).

http://i549.photobucket.com/albums/ii382/REMIX1968/latch.jpg

RMX

You're gonna have to strip it. There's rust, which means the plating is weak/gone in that area.

You could always have it stripped, and go with Cast Blast, making sure on the final coat to hold the can around 18" away and just mist it on. I personally would would have it done correctly. Just do it once, and be done with it.

Just remove the part and get a small plastic bucket...use lacquer thinner and a bristle paint brush. This won't remove any of the plating underneath and it'll allow you to assess whether or not it really needs replating. If your plating is real nice underneath you could do some judicious "touch up" work with a dark grey or black metallic flattened paint of some type on any bad areas.

It's an alternative. I've stripped a number of painted over phosphate parts this way and the plating always comes out unaffected.

It depends on what you are doing. I would recommend that you remove the part, bead blast and send it out to have it phosphate coated.

There are paints that resemble the phosphate coating as well. Toss it in a blast cabinet, prime & paint it.