When I needed to phosphate some small parts, I waited for my wife to be out, and then treated them in an old SS mixing bowl on the kitchen stove. My wife came home early, and caught me! Without slowing down, while walking through the kitchen, she exclaimed, "You know you're a redneck, when you cook bolts on the kitchen stove." And went up to bed.

Oops - gutsiest move I heard of all day. That's pretty funny!!!!

Back in the mid-1980's, my wife came home from work one day to find black wrinkle finish paint curing on my Hemi valve covers in our kitchen oven!

Any opinions if OE Hood springs are painted BLACK
or possibly Black Oxide coated which is pretty glossy
and then Oil Coated or I would use Fluid Film, BoeShield
or LPS3................

In first pics of this thread with springs slighly spread on twisted/notched
flat bar....was spring pulled by hand ???? onto notched bar ???

I made up a spring stretcher in the tool shop at work.
Basically a threaded tube with a long bolt and end adapters that touch as little of the spring as possible.
Thread the bolts all the way together, insert and unscrew and that stretches the spring out. Blast,clean and phosphate (or plate). When finished, thread back together and remove.
Were the springs manganese or zinc phosphated? Mines a '70.

Nice :biggthumpup: