Rusty Nuts n Bolts - We all got em, how do you fix em?

One thing I've come across owning and working on a handful of vintage bikes, cars, motorcycles is that it's usually good practice to keep all the factory fasteners and reuse them (unless they're fubar, of course)...

What I want to hear, is how you guys go about preventing said nuts and bolts from rusting after hitting them with the wire wheel, dipping them in your concoction of choice, etc.

I've used paint mostly in the past, but it always cracks when you put a wrench on it. Is there a secret coating out there? Do ya just replace them with new coated bolts and toss the old ones in the trash?


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adventurco said:

One thing I've come across owning and working on a handful of vintage bikes, cars, motorcycles is that it's usually good practice to keep all the factory fasteners and reuse them (unless they're fubar, of course)...

What I want to hear, is how you guys go about preventing said nuts and bolts from rusting after hitting them with the wire wheel, dipping them in your concoction of choice, etc.

I've used paint mostly in the past, but it always cracks when you put a wrench on it. Is there a secret coating out there? Do ya just replace them with new coated bolts and toss the old ones in the trash?


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I order every new bolt I can, which is likely not the cheapest option.

seems zinc coating is an option although not free of caveats.

id imagine you could likely get away with a whole overhaul if an entire set is purchased with the cost of materials/time plating would run.

jag767 said:

I order every new bolt I can, which is likely not the cheapest option.

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Yeah, I usually make bulk orders from McMaster for bolts that are a common size/I need a lot of them. The prices are reasonable. Then theres the stuff you can't so easily replace, like the swinger nut, etc.

vandito.cb said:

seems zinc coating is an option although not free of caveats.

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Plating would probably be the best option. I would wonder how it would affect the diameter of the threads. I don't know anything about the process, but can only imagine it would add some thickness to the material.

i did some brief reading on it and some mentions of tapping for a larger thread were tossed around...fuck that.

seems the bigger concern is "hydrogen embrittlement" and makes them susceptible to cracking, snapping, etc. over not so long periods of time.

i've thought about those HF tumblers, but after cleaning some rust via vinegar, phosphoric acid, etc., i've had nuts and bolts flash rust, indoors, after less than 24 hours.

Seems everyone wants to spend your money on new fasteners instead of answering how to make them nice if your keeping the old ones. Evap-o-rust or Prep and Etch both can used to prevent the rust from returning after wire wheeling the hardware.

The process is simple. New bolts are one way to go and if the old ones are pitted or heads rounded off, that's the only option for most people.

For fasteners that have been cleaned up, not pitted and the heads are OK after dressing them with a file , take them to you local plater and have them zinc plated. I have a huge, or should that be Yuge, bucket that I throw hardware into until I have enough for a batch and then I get them zinc plated.

It is important when wire brushing them to try to get the old plating off the threads to avoid double layers, but plating is very thin.

Hydrogen embrittlement is real and happens in plating, so ask your plating shop to bake the parts after plating to release the hydrogen. They will put them in a very hot oven for an hour or so to heat treat them to bake out the hydrogen. The process has been used for decades and works.

If you only have a few parts, get a plating kit form someone like Eastwood and bake in your oven at home when SWMBO is out.

Local platers usually have a weight minimum for bolts and such. A complete bikes worth of nuts and bolts won't come close to the minimum. So you either pay through the nose for a small batch or wait until you have 2-3 bikes worth of parts to plate and then sorting everything out when you get them back.

The wire wheel on the RTX > evaporust bath > WD40 wipe-down routine is working well enough for me and the scrambler.

o1marc said:

Local platers usually have a weight minimum for bolts and such. A complete bikes worth of nuts and bolts won't come close to the minimum. So you either pay through the nose for a small batch or wait until you have 2-3 bikes worth of parts to plate and then sorting everything out when you get them back.

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Sounds Normal to me. It also feeds my OCD need to sort through thousands of parts for 3 or 4 bikes of different models and makes so I can bag and tag them for the builds. For small numbers of parts get a DIY plating kit. Anything other than paint or plating will rust.

I did some browsing on amazon for DIY plating kits. All the reasonably priced ones were "brush on" plating kits, but I've seen it done with a car battery and a bucket of acid. I will be looking more into the possibility of DIY plating and post my findings here.

Don't think there are any plating shops around here that would bother with a bunch of nuts and bolts, though. We were looking to re-chrome the rear bumper on the 64 Beetle and were getting prices of $500+

The shop I used to use in Chicago became horribly expensive. Someone here tipped me off to a place that will do up to 100 pounds of zinc plating for about 100 bucks. For two or three bolts that would be outrageous but for a couple of bike loads, it's pretty reasonable and cheaper than all new Stainless.

adventurco said:

I did some browsing on amazon for DIY plating kits. All the reasonably priced ones were "brush on" plating kits, but I've seen it done with a car battery and a bucket of acid. I will be looking more into the possibility of DIY plating and post my findings here.

Don't think there are any plating shops around here that would bother with a bunch of nuts and bolts, though. We were looking to re-chrome the rear bumper on the 64 Beetle and were getting prices of $500+

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Check out Caswellplating.com for DIY plating kits. DIY plating kit is going to run you close to $200, which is only beneficial if you plan on doing many items for a period of time. I'm sure you can get DIY kits cheaper, but you get what you pay for. 100lbs of nuts and bolts is a pretty big bucket

I was looking at the 360 today and I noticed something that gave me a chuckle. When I was nearing the end of assembly, I wanted to ride and didn't have any paint, so I just remembered I colored some nuts/bolts black with a chisel tip sharpie.... ;D

Definitely not a real solution, but worth a mention.

And its actually held up to some mild salt water spray (wasn't happy that day) that actually ate right through the high heat paint on the exhaust collars. No rust whatsoever. Thought it was an interesting tidbit, and I forgot I even did it. The ink must actually form a very thin sealed coating.

Sharpie black isn't really black in my experience, it's too blue.

We have a local zinc plater that will do a 5-gallon bucket full of whatever we can send for $20. The cleaner they are when they go, the nicer they look when they come back. If we're really fussy we'll beadblast things and/or send them through a burn-off oven at the powder-coater.

FYI Sharpie makes some nice black paint pens (not the regular markers but actual paint) that works well to color over chips in painted things. You can get them in everything from wide tip to extra fine. I use white ones to write dates on oil filters, mark timing notches, label parts, etc. It stays on pretty well.

teazer said:

The process is simple. New bolts are one way to go and if the old ones are pitted or heads rounded off, that's the only option for most people.

For fasteners that have been cleaned up, not pitted and the heads are OK after dressing them with a file , take them to you local plater and have them zinc plated. I have a huge, or should that be Yuge, bucket that I throw hardware into until I have enough for a batch and then I get them zinc plated.

It is important when wire brushing them to try to get the old plating off the threads to avoid double layers, but plating is very thin.

Hydrogen embrittlement is real and happens in plating, so ask your plating shop to bake the parts after plating to release the hydrogen. They will put them in a very hot oven for an hour or so to heat treat them to bake out the hydrogen. The process has been used for decades and works.

If you only have a few parts, get a plating kit form someone like Eastwood and bake in your oven at home when SWMBO is out.

Click to expand...

Absolutely. Depends on what your goal is. For the concours guys, you already know the answer. For the practical among us(someday, I will beg inclusion!) see above. I tend to replace a LOT of fasteners with stainless - the cheap stuff (18-8 aka 304) is fine for most things not safety related on bikes. Stainless is NOT good for safety related parts (like axles etc. unless you know what you are doing). 316 is for boats - not bikes. Make stuff yourself 317L but you likely know what you are doing if you go there. My experience is that new is often not the same as original as manufactured so you may as well look to alternative sources. USA grade 8 is excellent and generally superbly plated - really long lasting - but not metric - if anyone has an equivalent source for metric I would be keen to hear of it.

Acids and chemicals like Evaporust (which I like and use) will remove the plating (at least most) and leave bare steel so replating or painting (coating etc) is required (or quick rust will ensue). Evaporust (etc)with minimum time and hand wire brush is good for getting the rust and leaving much of the plating intact so you can paint for the best durability and least cost I know of (got better let's please hear it!). Not good for fasteners that you likely will remove or handle often (ignition cover bolts) but fine for stuff you might never touch again (engine case half bolts)

Very hard to beat the function and economy of zinc or cad plating (manufacturers know what they are doing), but it's not permanent (otherwise we wouldn't be talking about any of this). I don't do concours bikes so I use stainless for everything not stressed (or engineer suitable stainless if practical) and use stock everything else (unless the OEM is a problem to begin with) and clean -paint-plate- WD40- or whatever and live with the maintenance. Usually there are only a few bits on a bike that are actually a strength/safety issue, so only a few bits get left to the perils of age.

I work on komatsu equipment and I wish I knew what they use to coat their hardware. I can take off 20 year old hardware that's never been indoors and they are always clean!

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