As my car nears the bodyshop/paint stage, I'm wondering about some details, I see that most people use new stainless hardware when they re-assemble, I was considering cleaning my bolts with a wire brush and re-using many of them (like the fender bolts). I was wondering how people usually do their door hinges, leave the mounting bolts polished, or paint them over with the color of the car?
We usually paint the door hinge bolts with the car. If we need to realign the doors later , we can touch up the bolt heads. We also try to reuse the bolts we take off if they are in good shape and the threads are not stripped. We prefer to use new bolts and nuts ( or clips ) if we can, but sometimes that's not possible. For badly rusted bolts, we soak them in old motor oil.
i use both depends what car it goes on. show car has all chrome or stainless bolts. my race cars got a mix and match. but my new stocker has the stock ones. if you buy a bench grinder with the wire wheel (i think sears has them for like 40 bucks) it can be your best friend with it comes to cleaning up your old bolts. they look like new and kill any rust on them. just remember that chrome fades and chips. stainless bolts are not as stong and grade 8 and stock well you already know what happens to those. good luck!
Unseen bolts were reused in my restoration if they weren't too rusty. I just cleaned them up with a wire wheel. Any bolt that could be seen I replaced with new... clips were new too. Not sure about a 1977 car but all the bolts on my 1971 were Yellow Dichromate Bolts. The only bolts painted the color of the car were the door bolts and trunk lid bolts ...
dm, I assume you acquired yout zinc bolts from AMK. I tried to order from them today, and the woman was clueless. I wish there was another place that sold the correct bolts. She should work at McDonalds. My old nuts and bolts are in good shape, and Eastwood sells something called Carb Renew, which I will try tomorrow, to put the correct yellow look to the hardware. The fender bolts are Zinc dichromate with a "N" on the head, at least for my 73 Comet. charles Fla.
Got them here ... They are Yellow Dichromate not called zinc ... http://mmb.maverick.to/showthread.php?t=6188 This is what I got from this place .... These exact same things are $1 each at the local ACE Hardware ...
OK .. thanks ... Zinc DiChromate AKA Yellow DiChromate as per that website ... Car-Clips calls them Yellow DiChromate when you look at their online catalog ...
