Yes. Later the one nut was changed to a push nut.
Photographic evidence indicates that the axles were usually all black for the 12 bolts and the early 10 bolts.
By 1973 the center section was typically shipped natural and the remainder of the axle was still painted black.
By 1975 GM discontinued painting axles all together. The shipping racks and the assembly process at Norwood left significant cosmetic damage to the underside of the axle tubes and quality scoring was tightening to create competition between plants. GM Assembly Division was pushing to get rid of the paint altogether in order to raise the quality score due to demerits that the assembly plant had to score against their own assembly process as the scratching was a normal and unavoidable outcome of how Norwood handled the axles for assembly. As a compromise GM engineering adopted the position that surface rust alone provided a sufficient corrosion barrier to meet the survivability standards required by the warranty commitments at the time of sale and since there was no paint to mar or scratch - the quality demerit issue was removed making Norwood slightly more competitive with the other assembly plants using more up to date conveyor material transport systems.
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