Originally Posted by
alcjphil
You know what? I had the very same thought. The reason why is that I owned a 1978 Mercury Zepher, which had cast aluminum bumpers. The bumpers were very thick, at least 1/4". They were real honest to goodness bumpers, I was rear ended once at a stop light hard enough to rattle my fillings but the biggest damage was to the dignity of the twit who hit me, my car was completely undamaged. However, by the time that the car was 5 years old, there were holes in those bumpers right where they bolted to the steel supports of the shock absorbers between the bumpers and the car frame. Other than the holes in those bumpers, they still looked almost new. Montreal uses enough salt on their streets every year to populate a good size city made up of others like the remains of Lot's wife
interesting.
I literally just came up from doing my post ride bike wash in the garage of my alu mtb that I ride most days. Wash it every day when ridden in winter, and a big part of doing that is because of the salt and salty water that ends up all over stuff, so luckily have a garage that I can do a fast, yet pretty good job of getting all the stuff rinsed off. And yes, I sometimes see this white powder in spots that havent gotten rinsed well, like if I take off a wheel, the qr springs and area will have some, so what you are describing goes in with that interface.
Makes me remember I need to do a final wash every so often with the wheels taken off.I do coat these areas with white grease, just to help a bit though., cant hurt.
78 Zepher--dont take this personally, but boy those late 70s to late 80s Mercs and others were pretty ugly....Im a car guy, and I still find a bunch of the late 70s and 80s stuff goofy looking.