So while my wheels are out I sat on the garage floor cleaning everything but am a little miffed the heads of the bolts are not shiny like new, no matter how much I clean for example the caliper bolts they are dull. How can I perk them up a bit?
Use a brass rotary wire brush, not a steel one, that dulls them but brass brings them up a treat then Halfords clear laquer over the top. Did this to mine, remained shiny no matter what weather I threw at it.
I recently removed 40/50 bits from the 916....... had them sent to a local plater and they are like new now
I guess after cleaning with the brass brush you could paint them and lacquer on top? Thinking bright yellow
I reckon if you paint them you won't need laquer but it can't hurt eh. Make sure the wire brush for your drill is not carbon steel , brass plated. Make sure its brass, halfords do them at about 6 quid I think, bought my nuts up a treat....Oooo err Mrs
PS, if it's hex bolts and not allen bolts, might wanna leave them to harden for a day or two then use cloth inside the socket to tighten, if its allen bolts like the calipers have, just crack on, laquer and fit This was after 2 very salty winters and did the above, excuse the quality of the pic, its a cut from a whole bike pic.
There is no zinc plater around here so brass brush it is, I might paint the caliper bolt heads red then lacquer them, same with the fork pinch bolts. During the winter then I may simply remove the flipping lot and send them away for zinc plating, give me something to do during the winter days.
Dude, I don't mean to be nasty and it's only imo, but coloured bolts will look shit. My 2p says polish up and laquer. Job jobbed
Swap them all to titanium I had to fit some longer bolts on one side of mine to hold the disk lock bracket and I used titanium ones 2 weeks ago and 5500miles on this bike and 7000 miles on last one and the titanium ones with a quick spray of break cleaner were shinny new The 5500 OE ones were dull and discoloured I think it was probolt where I got them Not cheap but maybe worth looking at....
The idea of the brass wire clean plus clear lacquered was a good one, just did the caliper bolts and they Look so much better, while the wheels are away I shall go round the bike cleaning, nothing else to do.
Race bolt are good value for polished stainless or titanium. Alternatively, get cheaper ones from Stig Fasteners or Middleton and stick them in a drill chuck to polish them up
Be wary about getting safety related fasteners replated. There is a thing called hydrogen embrittlement. There's lots of info on Google https://www.nace.org/Corrosion-Central/Corrosion-101/Hydrogen-Embrittlement/ It affects high tensile steel bolts, the plater can de-embrittle but it's never 100%. Many product manufacturers are using organic coatings to protect from corrosion rather than risk catastrophic failures.
