Wheel Bolts Refinished!

they look purdy!

 

They look great.

 

I have to do the same to mine.

They look good Jim and definately cheaper than buying new ones thats for sure.

 

Nice!

Jim, what kind of coin did the plating cost?

 

+1, what was the price per bolt?

 

Does this imply that the finish is durable enough to use a regular Sears Craftsman socket to re-install and torque down, or do I also have to shell-out for a special plastic-lined socket?

 

They look fantastic! It's difficult to find a specialist, a good specialist, and at a good price... But it seems that it worth it!

Cheers

 

They look great, like to see them on the wheels. Thinking about having mine redone next year. Please post a phone number/address for Browns Plating so I can keep it on file.

 

Hi all,
I haven't been on here in a while and scrolling through the treads I came across yours and thought I should share my experiance on this particular issue, and at the risk of sounding like "know it all" I decided to share my results anyway..

I have a 85 308 GTS over here in New Zealand, when the car arrived the alloys were in scruffy condition so I decided to strip and re-paint, the rims came up super and I brought new center cap as well but the lug nuts were in very average condition so it seemed a shame to use them.
I priced them up new and the best I could come up with was $45.00 NZ each thats $900.00 plus freight just for tidy bolts... !

Now I run a Mag Wheel and Tyre Franchise here in NZ ( www.magandturbo.com ) so I thought I could find something that would suit other than genuine.. I was wrong ! the Ferrari Lug is a 14mm x 1.5 and the stagered lenght front to rear was a real problem to find both here and over sea's.

I decided to take the original lugs to a chrome plater and asked him to re-coat them, I waited a week and got to the call to collect, once I got there much to my horror the heads were fine and looked like new but the treads on the bolt end had suffered from the proccess and lost the peak and depth off the thread pitch.. this meant that once I got home the bolts would screw into the hubs but once I applied any sort of preassure they just spun through lack of thread depth pitch.. they were screwed..

knowing that buying them would cost me a arm and leg I continued to hunt for lugs world wide with no more success than before, Hunting for options I took the damaged lugs to a engineer friend of mine that makes high performance suspensions for sprint cars and race cars alike to ask him his advice, he took one look at the Lugs I had chrome plated and sat me down and gave me a education that felt more like a telling off about chrome plating wheel nuts or in my case lugs..

Now I have been in the automotive trade for 23 years and the Tyre Industry for the past 16 and when this guy talks I listen...
He sat me down and explained that wheel nuts and or Lugs are made from I tensile steel and that for normal steel to become high tensile it goes through a haet proccess to make it that way.. this much I knew.. what I didn't know is that chrome plating such steel changes the molecular contruction of the steel for the worse this is call Oxygen Imbrittlement in sort the proccess hardens the steel and makes it brittle by way of allowing an increased amount of oxygen into the mix, he told me of cases that HotRod owners have chrome plated their wheel nuts and placed them on the car just to come out to their garage in the morning to find the bolt heads snapped off laying across the other side of the garage because they were left under tension.. DANGEROUS.
The only way to avoid this is to repeat the proccess of cooling over time that is needed to re create the correct tension, this he tells me takes 16-20 hours after you find out what the complete make up is of the steel..

After getting this news he asked if I could get tapper seated nuts for the rims, I could so I got 20 x 14mm nuts for him that seated correctly in the tapper of the alloy wheel ( TRX ) and he got in 14mm 1.5 mm treaded race grade bar and super locked the treaded bar into the nuts at the correct lenght to create the staggered bolt lengh I needed, he charged $200.00 NZ for the complete job and they look perfect and are safe.. I have since thrown the original bolts away..

Now take from this what you will but your life and that of others depend on simple things like wheel nuts working at the very least call a race engineer and ask him if he would get high tensile bolts chrome plated for his race applications don't call your chrome plater or a mechanic talk to a steel fabricator of race cars he will know...

Here's ya fix:
Go to your local Mag Wheel shop buy 20 tapper seated 14mm chrome wheel nuts and take them along with a front and rear example into a Race Engineer and get him to make you a set..


Best of Luck..

Darren

 

Jim,
That is indeed a novel chrome plating process if it doesn't induce hydrogen(not oxygen or nitrogen) embrittlement that requires heat treating to eliminate. Couldn't find any process specifics on the Browns web site tho.

My understanding is that things aren't quite as bad as Darren describes tho. The heat treating process to eliminate hydrogen after plating is a standardized(ASTM B 850-98), developed by industry.

IIRC, links to the process specification were posted in Fchat a few years back. I remember it as a bake as soon as possible (no more than 1 hr) after plating at 375 F to 400 F for I think for 24 hours or longer. (Don't try this w/o confirming my ageing memory).

The motorcycle shops that chrome high tensile strength items like wheel spokes & rims must be aware of the process & use it. Imagine a wire wheel disentigrating at high speed!

As for using tools on the finish, suggest either a plastic lined, or Aluminum socket like the 1 Hill Eng makes. Which reminds me, I need to buy one myself.

 

How were the bolts originally chrome-plated without problems? If they were heat treated can't it just be done again after re-plating or is there some additive effect that makes re-chroming more dangerous?

 

Good information here Verell..
I like to lean on the side of caution, seen some messy and expensive problem come from the odd cheap nut and bolt letting go !

Cheers
Darren

 

Verell,
It's always interesting to hear what you have to say. Thanks for helping us all time and again.
Tom B.

 

I'm sure the bolts were heat treated after the original plating. The important point is that the heat treating is most effective if done IMMEDIATELY (ie: less than half an hour or so) after being removed from the plating bath. Do it a day later & the embrittlement will have significantly advanced.

I speculate that there is an additive effect as the embrittlement mechanism appears to be to create small voids in the metal that can grow. So each time the object is plated, it's weakened. How serious this additive effect is I don't know.

Jim, I'm not saying that Browns hasn't found a way around the effect, just that I couldn't find anything on their web site about how they avoid it. I'd think they'd make such a significant plating advance a selling point.