Detail Question - 70 E-body Lower Steering Column Shaft

[Floyd]

Looking for info on original finish of the lower steering shaft components.  Mine was covered with over spray.  Grabbed this pic off eBay of a restored column  Is everything natural finish below the column tube?  I see traces of yellow cad on my lock out bracket but otherwise assume bare steel (unless the whole assembly got black paint?

Thanks!

[headejm]

I painted mine satin black. Did you review Cody's excellent steering column videos in our Resources section?

[anlauto]

There's a debate whether or not they were left bare metal or haphazardly painted black....I paint mine a bare steel colour....I guess if you were worried you could powder coat it....

[Dakota]

The lower section of mine was bare steel when I pulled it.  Can't swear it's original to the car or not.  I just sprayed some clear coat on it to try and hold off the rust for a bit.

[Skdmark]

FWIW

[Floyd]

Awesome.  Thanks for the replies.  Yes, I am all over Cody's excellent tutorials.  So helpful!

[three two barrels]

The 173 mile T/A has black paint pretty much everywhere.

[headejm]

Cody's video says to paint that shaft semi-gloss black. That's good enough for me. Plus a lot of the shaft is exposed to the elements and doesn't look too good when it is rusted up.