re-chroming wheel bolts

Good question, I have been wondering the same thing.

 

Paint 'em black

 

Why not buy the Hill Eng set and sell your "needs rechroming" set on eBay for something like $150~$200? Probably about the same net cost as the rechroming with less hassle, no downtime, and no risk that the rechroming shop "screws things up" or loses them -- see this thread:

http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=91850

PS Get an Aluminum-lined 6-point 22mm or 7/8" socket from Ozat or Snap-On, etc. to avoid future chipping.

 

Funny that this discussion came up. I have been battling this same problem for the past year and decided to re-chrome my bolts. I had seven that needed to be corrected so I decided to take them to a local plater. I just sent them over earlier this week. It cost me $50 to get them done, so it was much cheaper than buying new.

I should get them back by the end of next week so I'll have to set you know how they look.

 

Make sure your plater understands that these are high strength bolts and must be heat-treated after plating.

The plating process can induce hydrogen into the bolt, resulting in hydrogen embrittlement. I understand there's a pretty std heat treating process to drive the hydrogen out.

Search the Tech Q&A and old Fchat for more specifics, key words: 'bolts' , 'plating' and 'hydrogen' should do it.

Or just search the web for the same key words.

 

A set, even used, is much more $$$$$ than that, in my experience...

But it's fairly easy to find an electroplater....ask any Harley guy, they'll know! LOL!

You spec the amount, thickness whatever.....good point about the heat treatment, V......

 

GET NEW ONES!

 

R. Linsey is right many aftermarket setups are unchromed anyway, and black works...

Valeria paints hers to match her toenails.......

 

New ones are $65 dollars EACH at the parts counter brudda!

Go ahead, I'll give you my mailing addy, for your old ones.....

 

They acid dip before plating to strip it down..........

 

Paul's Chrome quoted me $10-15 per bolt.

The process to relieve the hydrogen embrittlment is called 23 hour bake. I make bolts for aircraft they get Cadmium plated not chrome but baked after plating. I bet you could perform the 23 hour bake at home (I can get the spec's from my plater). But any certified plater should have the spec's.

 

And hell, you can make some cookies at the same time!

I'll bet my wife would be thrilled about me baking some wheel bolts in the oven for a day!

Birdman

 

Sounds like your wife is cool!

 

RIGHHHHT if you believe Christine would go for that, I've got a bridge to sell...

OTOH,
Chris, get me the bake specs.

I have this nice oven in the garage that I use for powdercoating. Baking in it wouldn't be a problem...

Heck, we could even have a bake-off, that oven would hold a heck of a lot of bolt sets...
;^)

 

She's a good doober, she would roll her eyes and make jokes about it to my friends later!

Birdman

 

had mine done last year by a chrome/restoration place in fall river, ma for $10 ea. jon s.

 

Got my bolts back from the plater on Thursday and they look great! Seven bolts for $50 is much better than buying new.

I'm not worried about Hydrogen Embrittlement. Being an Engineering and not knowing about it before this I did some research on-lin. Read about it from several different sources and overall nobody knows for sure how much of an impact entrapped molecular hydrogen affects steel. It depends on the molecular grain structure of the steel in question, any voids it may have due to impurities in the steel, etc. Even then there is no hard fast formulation of the % reduction of shear strength.

Since the plater masked the threads (where most of the tensile [not shear] stress in the bolt will occur), there isn't any way it could get trapped. No chrome, no problem.

 

I too was worried about the newly chromed bolts not matching the old ones and to tell you the truth, I haven't noticed a difference. Just to keep them consistent, I may end up taking the rest of them in just to keep them all the same. That was suggested by the company that chromed them for me.

I could have gotten them cheaper than $7 per bolt. They charge a minimum lot charge of $50, which had I known that earlier, probably would have just sent them all in the first time. Lesson learned.

I never gave painting them a thought. No matter how bad they looked or were scuffed up, they could strip the old plating, probably tumble them or polish them to get the scratches out, then put a nice thick plate on them.

 

had painted lug bolts on my 81 635 bmw - no matter how careful i was the paint always chips an rusts. and at that i still put a baggy in the socket for the chrome plated bolts on the ferrari. jon s.