On 4 wheel drive vehicles what color would the shock absorbers be? This CJ-7 Jeep model I am building calls for steel Is that correct?

On most Civilian vehicles today the shocks are painted Jeeps and the like usually have either black, red , yellow or blue shocks. After some hard use they may look unpainted but I think any color steel paint that I've seen would be too bright unless you give it a good "wash" of black or rust.

Thanks Chuck

The only part that would look metal is the actual arm that goes up inside the shock when it is compressed, this is usually an aluminum color, however on off road vehicles, it usually has a flexable boot to cover the exposed arm too keep dirt and mud off of it, the boot is usually painted the same color as the shock itself.

Shock color itself is usually dependent upon its manufacture. Most new vehicles are painted the same as the underbody of the vehicle, but anything with some aftermarket work done on it would be a different color, like Monroe shocks would be blue, with yellow writing. Bilsteen would be red with white lettering or white with red lettering...etc, etc.

Hello Chad, well what year jeep are you doing and is it stock version. Anyhow here is a link on jeep shocks. Hope this helps out.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cj-7+jeep+shock&btnG=Google+Search

some now have a plastic coating around them bust most of the one's I've seen are black and uprated ones seem to be red (thats for all sorts of cars)

Joseph Thanks for the link The model is a 1977 and will be built stock

Just like Chuck said, depending on what brand you bought, to what color they are, like when I bought Monroe, they were yellow, but all of them rust real fast, no matter what brand you buy.
I used to haft to buy shocks every year, and depending on where I was, and to what brand they carried, sometimes they were black, blue, red, I had to settle for what they had.

Course it didn't matter much, one shock lasted as long as another, about 1 year.
So take in to effect the rust gets on them, I think as soon as you pull out of the shop, or at least it seems that way.

Kerry