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OK, I know this is the 10th time I've said it but;

- both parts were gloss black from the factory. Semi gloss was a GM thing. That having been said the cheapo factory gloss black wasn't exactly done with a high degree of quality in mind and it is easy to overdo it, using better materials, coverage and methods than the factory did...which is why Bill and others have suggested knocking it back from full gloss.










That's it. What needs to be considered is that the description for original "gloss" back in the day was just plain old gloss black, no flattening or dulling agents were used to reduce the shine. HOWEVER, the quality of the paint was an inexpensive industrial grade, and that it was applied in rapid fashion with no regard to the resulting appearance. It's purpose was a basic metal protection so the raw steel didn't rust immediately and likely as a mask so that the undercarriage didn't show when the car was being viewed from a few feet away. All this adds up to a duller looking black that you'd see on a finish painted surface such as the outside of the car painted with a higher quality paint. How do you reproduce the exact look of original? It's not as easy as it may seem, personally I'd clean the part to bare metal, prep it to "clean" status, spray a thin coat of primer sealer on, buy the cheapest single stage "gloss" black enamel and paint it on thin and fast and let it end up where it ends up.

*Most NOS K-members had a protective primer/sealer on them, usually a light or darker grey color, or rust red (depended on the era) but production line units may not have had any. Also, some early K-members (1967 and earlier in particular) were not gloss black! They were actually a very dark gloss gray, it looks black at a glance but sitting next to black it's a long ways away from black.

*Cass, I have no doubt that your parts are as described and certainly contribute to the knowledge base about original parts detailing, however, NOS/replacement parts were often finished differently than production line parts so you really can't use them as the final word in production line correctness.