How to clean a bucket of bolts

[rcx132]

So after all that effort of tumblers turns out it wasn't needed, the smut that's left over from the phosphoric acid gets removed at the platers using "cathodic ionic cleaning" whatever that is. So all that is needed is 20 min in hot caustic to remove grease and paint, and 20 min in phosphoric to remove rust and old zinc. Easy. But be careful if anyone is doing this, hot caustic is dangerous.

 

[8ob]

What are the threads like? I binned load sof bolts on my bike


I use a deep fat fryer with truck wash and lashings of added caustic. Con rods look like new forging after being fried.
What really is amazing is the hardoated[?], cast of some sort of **** that you would expect casutic to eat, doesn't get eaten by the caustic.

My supposedly stainless fryer turned up the other day, the only stainless on it is the rizla thin casing. I was going to try your potion of truck wash and caustic but I think it will get eaten out, will give it a go with truckwash and see how it turns out.

Bob

 

[rcx132]

My supposedly stainless fryer turned up the other day, the only stainless on it is the rizla thin casing. I was going to try your potion of truck wash and caustic but I think it will get eaten out, will give it a go with truckwash and see how it turns out.

Bob

Send it back! I had the same with microwave, wanted a rust free one, but only the skin was stainless, inside has rotten after three years.

 

[Kent]

Can you not order brand new bolts?

 

[rcx132]

Can you not order brand new bolts?

It's all fine pitch large bolts. Expensive. The M8 and M6 ones I replace. It

 

[graffian]

The pan in my fryer is some sort of light cast crap, it didn't get damaged by caustic but
I had the element plugged in and added some extra heat, courtesy of a propane torch.
The element's magic smoke escaped.
I still use it but it's completely propane fired now.

 

[Kent]

It's all fine pitch large bolts. Expensive. The M8 and M6 ones I replace. It

The only thing I understood in that is expensive . Long soak in vinegar will remove plating. The pait I should personally burn off without getting the bolt too hot. Now I have a tumbler that I use for cleaning cartridge cases so I would personally run them overnight in that with corn cob media and a spoon of brasso liquid.
Think you need to use what you have if it's about money or it will be cheaper to just order new from a proper fastenings company (the exception being if they were of vintage) metric fine will be available but then you will be buying a box not a dozen or so

 

[rcx132]

The only thing I understood in that is expensive . Long soak in vinegar will remove plating. The pait I should personally burn off without getting the bolt too hot. Now I have a tumbler that I use for cleaning cartridge cases so I would personally run them overnight in that with corn cob media and a spoon of brasso liquid.
Think you need to use what you have if it's about money or it will be cheaper to just order new from a proper fastenings company (the exception being if they were of vintage) metric fine will be available but then you will be buying a box not a dozen or so

Sorry I must have written that on my phone. I don't think replacing the bolts is as easy as you think. The OEM bolts have small heads, many are pointed so that they can be pushed through heavy suspension parts. Or they are super slim or some other unusual shape. Plus most fine pitch bolts only come in "self colour" which is a black finish no good for outdoors, so they would need to be stripped and plated anyway. Plus it's not just the bolts, that bucket has all the trim fasteners, brake clips, pins, springs, all sorts. Plus new bolts come in 10 micron zinc which only lasts a couple of years under the car. At the platers you can specify zinc-nickel which lasts five times longer according to salt spray tests plus I always ask for it to be 20 microns thick.

Now that I have a system going it's easy. When I do my next car this will all only take a couple of days, log what each bolt size is for, caustic, rinse, acid, rinse, dry, tumbler.... I have a tumbler now, the platers said it's not needed, but safer to get the bolts 100% clean for best zinc adhesion, plu sit gets rid of the heavy flash rusting that the acid causes.

I looked up the cleaning method that the platers said they used, it's actually cathodic anodic cleaning. I may have it the wrong way round but I think Cathodic cleaning is just the normal electrolytic cleaning that we use on this forum. Anodic is when the polarity is reversed, that needs a special electrolyte, and it etches the metal, so should only be used for a very short time. I think the latter is what removes the smut left over from the cathodic cleaning.