I went to old car salvage yards for years and a lot of times the mission was fasteners- Place bolts, carb studs, generator and alternator bolts, etc. My "toolbox" is some 5-gallon buckets full of these. I know, hoarder.
I have a similar box of hardware that I tell my kids is full of magic, because it always has what I need for a particular task. The flip side is: it always has one less than I need....
I think Thomas Edison said this , or something like it: to be an inventor, all you need is imagination and a big pile of junk. those of us with the disease have both.
I was an automobile dealer for 25 years in another part of my life. I started in Chevrolet parts department in 1963. I was always fascinated with the hardware selection we had, bolts, nuts, fasteners, grommets etc. So, when I had my dealership, I bought cabinets for home use. When i retired and sold my home I had a complete selection of chrome, stainless, grade six and eight, clamps, electrical wire and ends of all gauges, cable ties, muffler clamps and much more If I needed it I had it. I could build, restore, most everything plus all the equipment to go with that.
100%. My last PullaPart trip was almost a waste of time, until I started stripping hardware from the oldest Fords in the yard. Mostly 70s F100, plus one LTD, but I'd much rather use that than Home Depot ****. My dad's been gone for 30 years, and I still have his jelly jars full of nuts and bolts. Using his stuff makes me smile.
Customer: I need original fasteners for my (insert year/model here) Me: I can get them but you can buy them at Grainger or other hardware suppliers. Or try ebay. Customer: I want OEM parts. Me: OK. It's a hour of drive time plus 1/2 hour for removal plus cost of fasteners. They will cost this much. Customer: Click
I am re-using as much of the original fasteners as I can on the old Ford I am restoring. Blast, wire wheel, then plate. Hardware store items, just not the same. Re-pop radiator yoke bolts needed heads re-shaped, re-pop springs wrong, as well as nuts. So, bolts, original springs and nuts stripped and plated. Time consuming, but worth it!
Love this sort of thing. I’ve got bins of take offs from cars/parts I’ve broken down. Little fuel line tabs, funny clamps, it’ll all find a home someday and adds to the flavor
Worked for Volvo-GM truck for a decade or more. They closed the plant in Ohio and started cleaning house. Throwing away dumpster after dumpster of hardware and misc parts. I collected 100’s of pounds of fasteners. A lot of stainless. I think I’ve collected almost every fastener I’ve ever dis***embled. Better than a jewelry store to me.
I first became aware of vintage fasteners as a kid. The axle nuts on a pre war Schwinn cruiser are a thing of beauty!
I'm a hardware junkie. Having a large ***ortment makes me feel like some kind of superhero repairman, I always seem to find something in my stash that will fix a problem. My home hardware stock sits in contrast with the opposite situation at work (I'm a fabricator). We are sorely understocked, and all our stuff is grade 8 generic or fresh off the boat via Grainger. Like working with my hand tied behind my back.
I'm a boomer. And like a lot of boomer kids that had a dad that fiddled around in his garage or shop there was a bit of military surplus stuff kicking around. My dad a had an old gold and black variegated 1# coffee can about 3/4 full of military surplus hardware. The contents of that old coffee can got depleted over the years and finally went away, chucked during a move most likely. I still think about the old man, that coffee can, and the special adventure of going to an old time Army Navy Surplus store. I had a small stash of that hardware that I'd use on my cars but always wished I had more, well sometimes wishes do come true! Several years ago, a friend was thinning the heard, "hey do you want this?" A crusty toolbox full of cool old AN fasteners!
When working on old cars we quickly learn to recognize and keep specialized fasteners we come across. I like many I'm sure have several containers of old fasteners, and it's always a victory when we find what we're looking for.
For me it depends on the vehicle and placement of the fasteners. On the Comet I used all original fasteners where they are visible, for critical areas like suspension I used high quality aftermarket fasteners. All of them were stripped and replated in yellow zinc. When I restore a Messerschmitt I use original fasteners exclusively, after blasting and p***ing inspection I Parkerize them to replicate the factory look. It’s the details that make a difference.
I inherited my Dad's coffee cans full of dusty vintage fasteners and hardware. I often find myself searching through them for that just right nut, bolt or whatever.
I have a mix of fasteners that were stripped from cars I have wrecked over the years, I rarely have to go to the store for any. When they went metric at the place I worked, they told me to banish all the imperial fasteners to the s**** bin. I did like I was told, except I took them all home. UNF, UNC, BSF, B.A. and a few strange ones (British of course). I'm now running low on my AN stuff that filled my toolbox when I worked for an airline , but that was about 40 years and 30 cars ago!
Those who are familiar with us know that we also rebuild early Ford standard transmissions. We learned years ago that the original Ford fasteners were frequently made to a specific dimensional standard…..but also were made from a higher grade of steel than today’s aftermarket hardware. With mainly one exception, we clean and reuse the Ford fasteners. The special shoulder bolts are important for the securing of the shifter housings and the rear bearing retainers. The only exception in our rebuild would be the front bearing retainer bolts….those were regular non-shoulder bolts and we use a Grade 8 bolt there. Sadly, hardware store bolts are commonly made in other countries where the steel alloys and heat treatment are not even close enough……we found that the supposed Grade 5 bolts would not survive the specific torque specifications. I could probably put 40-50 lbs of torque on a Ford 5/16-18 bolt without any problems…..that’s how good the steel was along with their mfg process. We always save the original hardware from the core transmissions we deal with.
I don't ever discard hardware, nuts, bolts, washers, etc. Have bin after bin after buckets of the stuff. Hard to find what I am looking for sometimes, but it is usually there, somewhere.
I have found that Third Gen Auto in Tenn has many of the hard to find kits and fasteners for early Ford especially flathead V8. For example: special D head bolts and small nuts for the U-joint covers to the transmission rear bearing retainer, used from 32-36
I've noticed another way ****py generic fasteners express their ****piness. Nuts often have the threaded hole not particularly square with the outside hex. If you clamp a bolt in a vise and run down such a nut, it can be seen to be wobbling around due to this misalignment. So when the nut is tightened against a flat surface, one edge touches first. As it's tightened more this side tries to pull apart the thread at that location instead of distributing the force evenly on the threads. Part of the reason for poor quality is that even in industry, purchasers often buy from distributors, not manufacturers. And the distributor simply buys whatever is cheapest that week that comes with a lovely certificate of "good enough". For a great read about the manufacture of quality fasteners, look up the ARP website. They actually have engineers on staff that design and test fasteners.
Some of the antique features I added to my house (mechanical doorbells, mail slots, etc.) have fasteners with obsolete thread pitches, so I had to restore and reuse the existing hardware. I have a tap and die chart listing all kinds of weird thread sizes that were common prior to WW II, which came in handy for identifying those sizes. I remember it took me awhile just to find a 3/8"-20 tap so I could chase the threads in some antique gl*** doorknobs.
https://www.signnow.com/fill-and-sign-pdf-form/332906-single-form-thread-fit-chart-harvey-tool Here's the chart I mentioned in my previous post. Some really interesting stuff!
Like many that posted, I tried not to throw away any old hardware. When I dis***emble something, I throw the hardware in a bucket. When it's full, I take it to a local plater who cleans them and plates them black zinc. When they return, it's a fun exercise to sort them to their respective size. pitch, etc. I always pickup storage boxes when I see them, so when I need OE Ford hardware, I generally have them in stock. Here is an example.
Hello, That is a nice find of fasteners. A lot of folks save fasteners, nuts and bolts, different wood screws and throw them all in one container. The idea is that in a package of 6, you use only 5 and one gets thrown in the box. The idea of separate small drawers such as those below is not in the picture if one only has a single screw or nut/bolt. At our old house that was built in 1963, my work bench had no drawers to store anything. It was just a workbench. So, I used gl*** marinara bottles to store different left over nuts, bolts and screws. The Ragu Sauce came in two sizes. One was a smaller 15 oz. size, like the sauce on the right. If your stacking shelves allows space, then the larger size bottle obviously hold more. Then, later on, we used to have the standard clear gl*** Marinara sauce bottles screwed into the upper wooden shelf in our garage. It was the easiest way to store the left over nuts/bolts for the next time need or usage. But there are so many sizes. Each bottle was the receptacle for left over screws of all kinds at first. As more time was spent trying to find each one of a specific kind by dumping them on the work bench counter, it was time consuming. Now, there seemed to be more of one kind. So, those were the first to have their own bottle attached under the wooden shelves. I had a separate tool box little sections for the small parts necessary to make my commercially oriented skateboard/scooters. They had different parts than for our El Camino or station wagon. The gl*** jars were for the standard left over from home projects, cars and such. Now, there were enough specific parts to deserve their own gl*** jar. We have a policy that keeps the garage somewhat organized and not cluttered. So, when we did our first garage clean out, all of these years later, the majority of the skateboard products got tossed or given away. But, I stored several nuts and bolts to put together several extra boards I had in the attic storage area. Those nuts and bolts are still in a plastic drawer in a small tool box inside of a cabinet out of sight. The most common parts for ***embly of any projects for us... The small sizes of containers/drawers were perfect for the varying sizes of nuts and bolts. But, the more I gathered, the more small blue boxes showed up. Then a row of these drawers fit nicely on the open shelving of our old garages. Finally a larger unit held “more stuff.” So, another whole row of them were on the lower shelves. Finally, after several purges, neighborhood garage sales and give aways, I now have two storage bins for small parts for daily use or repairs. But, as one notices, the small blue drawer on the right still has parts left over from the skateboard/scooter build days. Those sizes came in handy during the family “toddler” stages of our son and toddler granddaughter. Now, 15 years later, haven’t been used for years, just taking up space, but behind closed dust free cabinet doors. This is in an upper cabinet. The lower cabinet drawers are full of stuff, too. Daily stuff to model car projects to tools and larger tools. It is growing, even after the purges, but necessary for our uses. So, I keep telling my wife. As long as she cannot see the possible mess on the pristine counter, she is ok with the storage solutions, including “her” daily or weekly accessible shallow drawer. The clean empty counter sees action almost daily and definitely weekly from the both of us, as we do projects in the house and garage. The excuse for these two last parts cabinets still in the clear drawers, (behind closed doors) is that I still have several new/old skateboards and custom handles… perhaps, one day… when I have time... YRMV
My uncle has something like 1200 drawers full of small hardware and electrical connectors and parts. Some of that stuff has been stored for years, but he says it's a great feeling when he happens to have exactly what he needs.
The Jalopy Journal
