Restoring Automotive Fasteners - DIY or Pro? Tips, Tricks, and Amazing Zinc Plating Results!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 มิ.ย. 2024
- Hardware is one of the most important parts of a car project, and potentially one of the trickiest things to deal with. What do you do with that rusty pile of nuts, bolts, screws, clips, springs, brackets, and other things - especially if no replacements are readily available? Of course you can always do nothing, and put them back in as-is. But if you're going for a nice restoration and want things to be as good as new, what's the best way to achieve that?
I've been working on my 1973 Opel Manta suspension for a while now, and came to the conclusion (after much research) that my best bet was to send all my fasteners to a professional plating shop to be stripped and re-plated in yellow zinc. The cost was significant, but considering the amount of unique and hard/impossible to replace parts, and the absence of any good D.I.Y. refinishing methods, I felt it was the right choice for me. The results are awesome! It's satisfying to have original fasteners that look brand-new again.
In this video, I'll delve into the challenges and options for cleaning up and restoring your project hardware, tips on keeping track of your fasteners to avoid confusion, tips on buying replacements, and I'll unbox my nice shiny restored hardware for your enjoyment.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 - Intro
1:22 - Keeping Track of Project Hardware
3:52 - What to Replace
5:42 - DIY Restoration Options
8:58 - Pro Zinc Plating Results & Final Thoughts
VIDEOS REFERENCED:
• "Should You Buy A Vibratory Tumbler To Clean Rusty Hardware? Probably Not. But..." by Phillips Home Repair - • Should You Buy A Vibra...
• "Black Oxide Coating Parts For Your Own Projects" by GearBoxVideo - • Black Oxide Coating Pa...
• "ZInc Plating Hardware with Caswell Electroplating Copy Cad Zinc Plating Kit" by Compulsive DIY - • ZInc Plating Hardware ...
I'll be putting the Manta suspension back together soon, so stay tuned! Follow me on IG for random updates and stuff: / andrewdoescarstuff - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
Lots of good tips. Love the Manta. Hi from Australia.
Hi Andrew, fantastic idea to refurbish the old parts. I have been at the Opel plant for 25 years and have seen the small parts press shop and the old galvanizing shop before much was outsourced. These parts are impossible to get today even in Germany. And newly galvanized they look like fresh from the factory. That's what restoration is all about. Your Manta looks great. Exactly in the color as I would also like to have.
Wow, very cool to hear from an Opel insider! Glad you approve of my project, thanks 😎
@AndrewDoesCarStuff do you know If you can apply yellow chromate at a different time. For example if you zinc your bolts can you weeks later apply the yellow chromate, or does it need to be done all at the same time
Hey man, just discovered your channel. Great presentation, nice and chilled. That Manta is one of my all time favourite cars, lovely shape. The old Vauxhall Firenza coupe has some nice lines too 😎🙌
Thanks! I never knew about the Firenza, had to look it up. Pretty cool looking!
Great informative video. Not a bad price for having all those items professionally done! I once date a gal who had a similar Opel Manta.
This is the first video of yours I’ve had the pleasure to watch. Very Impressive video….. amazing content and some of the highest quality of editing and storytelling on TH-cam. Definitely deserves a subscription from me. Thank you for taking the time to do this. I look forward to seeing more of your videos. 👍👍😎👍👍
Well thanks very much!
That is a really cool way to go ! Thanks for the tips!
Wow! You are really following a good system! Impressed!
Thanks!
Great tips! Thanks Andrew!
Thanks Mike! Working on a car like this is a far cry from my experience with the '68 Cougar, which has just about every little clip, screw, nut and bolt available brand new!
Thank you for the video. This has been very helpful for my restoration project.
That's great, that was my goal!
Hello from France
Thank you for your videos
Bonjour! Thanks for watching!
They look awesome 👍 sometimes ya just gotta pay 💲💵 to get things done right 👍
I really enjoyed this video and I really liked how you identified and organized your bolts. One tip that I found is 30% vinegar for stripping parts and bolts. It takes paint, galvanize, rust, corrosion, etc. I let it sit in it for about 2-3 days. It does flash rust very quickly after you take it out though. It is very corrosive so you don’t want it on your skin or eyes.
Very nice.
I’ve got an “old” 1991 Subaru that needs a mild restomod. While I can still get most of the hardware, things like rusty brackets and springs will get the zinc treatment.
Hey Andrew, I'm only up to @1:12 and there they are. Yellow Zinc Chromate. AWESOME. Now if only I can get my Butt in gear and buy that damn '69-'72 Highboy to restore before I need to be restored. This is going to be a great video. Back to watching.
Excellent video. Nice narration and information. And an Opel? Awesome! I will be using your documentations system. Hadn’t though about actually editing shots of disassembled parts with an iPhone and add text.
Thanks! It can be time-consuming to do it this way, but you will thank yourself later.
Beautiful job on all your gold stuff! I'm setting up in the future for small-scale plating for bike and scooters, and also vapour honing. Really looking forwards to it! Who knows, it may even overtake my carpentry and joinery job???
As long as you have the space for all the equipment, and you think you'll do enough plating to make it worth setting up, I say go for it! It's always satisfying to make old things new again.
Just stumbled on your channel this morning as I was also down the rabbit hole of zinc plating my parts on my '77 Datsun 620 build. First of all, fantastic video quality and editing - I instantly subbed! Second, it only cost you $400 to get your gear plated? I mean, that ends the debate for me, personally, as I figured it would cost a few hundred to get set up and then factor in what my time is worth. LASTLY, the Belmetric info has been an absolute life saver!
Thanks very much! I'm glad this saved you some time and decision-making while going through the same thing. That was what I hoped this video would do. I'm sure prices vary at different plating shops but in the end I think it was well worth it. They also have better ways of stripping the old rusty parts clean, like acid baths and such.
do you have a link to the gauges you used for bolt identification, love the idea of having those in the shop!
Thanks Andy! I got mine on ebay here: www.ebay.com/itm/323847814437 The only disadvantage with these thread gauges is that you can't measure female threads. But otherwise they are very handy and inexpensive.
They appear to be made by a company called BoltSize-It, but it looks like they only sell in bulk. Still it's interesting to look at their site and get ideas for other kinds of thread measuring devices. www.boltsizeit.com
Andrew, very nice series on your Manta, owning one myself really enjoy seeing you sort through yours. Can you tell me where online you got the thread gauges? I really like their simplicity and didn't come across that style when searching. Thanks in advance and keep up the good work!
Thank you! The only disadvantage with these thread gauges is that you can't measure female threads. But otherwise they are very handy and inexpensive. I got mine on ebay here: www.ebay.com/itm/323847814437
They appear to be made by a company called BoltSize-It, but it looks like they only sell in bulk. Still it's interesting to look at their site and get ideas for other kinds of thread measuring devices. www.boltsizeit.com
@@AndrewDoesCarStuff thanks Andrew
Hi Andrew, good episode! Who did you use for your plating and how long did it take from the time you sent parts to them till you had them returned? Thanks so much. Lin
Thanks! I think who you use for plating can depend on where you live, for me I wanted to find somewhere relatively close by. I went with Van Nuys Plating. Turnaround time was about 5 weeks. I hesitate to fully endorse them because they did ruin a couple of my parts (there were a couple of non-steel parts that got put in acid with everything else) but apparently it was a very rare mistake as it was a brand new employee who didn't know better at that time. They did give me a discount to offset the cost of replacing the parts. Aside from this accident they were good to deal with and the results were nice, as you can see. So I chose not to mention this struggle in the video. But it's worth keeping in mind, if you have any pot-metal or aluminum parts, be sure the plater is aware and treats them accordingly.
Hi Andrew. I’m restoring my 1950 Dodge Power Wagon 1-ton pickup truck so the notion of using the original fasteners brought me to your video. $400 seems reasonable. I’m curious what company you used, the date you had it done (prices are getting stupidly high as of March 2024), the turnaround time, what prep was required before sending, shipping costs, etc. Thanks.
Hi, I used Van Nuys Plating, and it was in 2022. Turnaround time was about a month. I don't think you need to do much in terms of prep, as they put the steel parts into an acid bath to strip and clean them. I had already wire-wheeled most of my stuff, thinking it would help, but it probably wasn't needed. I'd ask them to be sure.
A note on the pricing I got, it's a little more complicated, because they ended up accidentally tossing a few pot metal parts into the same acid bath (turn signal housings, throttle cable bracket) which destroyed them. So they gave me a $100 discount for that. I didn't want to throw them under the bus in the video - they were very apologetic and apparently it was a new employee who made the mistake. That being said I was happy with their work and would use them again.
.wow..nice and shiny...what was the turn around time in getting your stuff back from the plater?
It took about a month if I remember right!
Been debating whether to set up a plating station at home. Like you, unless I do it over and over, it seems a better option to pay for someone else's time and expertise.
Yep, exactly. I like doing things myself but sometimes it just makes more sense to pay the pros.
So did you have to clean them all up before you sent them off or do they handle that task as well? The parts look great.
Best bet is to ask the plating shop you're using. I don't think I actually needed to clean my hardware, as they used an acid bath to strip them back down to bare metal before plating.
Did you have to prepare the fasteners for zinc or did you just send them crusty and rusty? Great video.
Thanks! Well I did wire-wheel most of the stuff before sending it, thinking that would save me a little money, but I don't think I actually needed to. They throw everything into an acid bath that eats everything but the steel. So I think you could send in crusty parts without issue.
what company?
@@AndrewDoesCarStuff
could you tell me the size of bolts that you mentioned as unique and difficult to find?
please tell it's M size length, pitch and length of its threaded area
It would be tough to tell you all of them, since there are quite a few. I took pictures and measurements of them though. One example is the upper control arm bolts, since they are very long, but only a little bit at the end is threaded. Also some of the washers were quite unique, as well as the inner sleeves for the bushings.
how much it cost you that plating thing for all? was it kg basis or per piece basis?
It was around $400-500 and I think it was based on the size / volume of pieces.
At 0:20 what type of paint is that?
That is VHT Roll Bar & Chassis paint in Satin Black (SP671). It's one of my favorites for this kind of thing.
How make the work for you?
Who did the plating? I used Van Nuys Plating, here in California.
Whats the name of the company you used?
Van Nuys Plating
Jesus is strong with this one 🤣🤣🤣
blessed be thy shiny bolts, amen
Oh! Farted…
I laughed so hard when reviewing that footage, I had to leave it in.