Art & Inspiration Down to the Nuts & Bolts

The local Farmers Co-op had a wooden bolt and nut bin . Back when I was messing around with hit and miss engines I'd go up and dig through the bin and find thick headed bolts I needed. Then just before the Co-op was bought buy another group . I went and bought all the square nuts and bolts that was there. A late friend of mine had a chuck wagon he entered in cook offs . I suppled him with some nuts to get it time period correct .

 

After over 4 decades in the restoration biz you learn where it counts and where it doesn't. One thing I've not done is try a tip given to me a while back about where to get the "good stuff" like thick headed bolts and such. I was told that our local Catapillar dealers (Michigan Cat) is a good place to buy new taller headed bolts for a proper look on the old American big iron like packard, Pierce Arrow, etc. One of these days I have to make the time and check it out since I began yet another full restoration of a 34 packard (go figure, right?). I have a 5 gal bucket full of removed and spare fasteners that range from the muscle car era back to the 30s. One of my dear friends save all of his, cleans them and runs through the black oxide treatment, in essense "restoring" the old fasteners. What I don't like is how thin the the heads are on new USS/USF bolts unless they're metric. By the time you remove the hardness marks they're just plain ugly. In an O/T rod I finished recently I did all round head slotted staunless for the fender hardware. Anyone can use socket heads or regular ol stuff, I thought it would look good and be easy to align all the slots. It was, and it does look good to me. I used star washers to eliminate the gangly look of lock washers. It got hit this season and is in for a fender repair, if I remember I'll snap a pic and share it here.

 

I was just out in the garage the other day thinking about this very thing. While I’m only the third owner of this car... the second owner had this car since 1962 so it went through several decades of building. Now that I have it I’m trying to make it “40’s to 60’s” correct.

All that being said... I’m not really a car guy... I just enjoy building all kinds of things and this car will definitely be a challenge.

I have not dug too in depth on here... wonder if there is a thread on vintage bolts and their head marking identifications.




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I have a couple of "hell boxes", as in, "what the hell is in here" or "where in hell is a bolt or nut that I need right now". One is standard SAE stuff, the other is German and Japanese metric, with some US metric thrown in for flavor. Funny thing I found is that some German metric and US SAE are the same, German metric and Japanese metric are different, and US metric is also totally different than all of them. And even weirder, I have found some threads on my 47 Linc that metric fits, but common SAE doesn't, odd sized I guess.

My stuff is nowhere near as neat as some of you guys' are. I ought to sort it out, but I've never taken the time, I just poke and stroke through the boxes until I find or don't find what I need.

 

All current Metric threads come under the ISO standard, regardless of the country of manufacture.
Before the ISO standard, most European countries had their own thread forms. Some sizes interchanged, some did not. Japan had it's own JIC standard. In the 1960's most companies changed to the modern standard. Some did it piece by piece, resulting in vehicle with mixed thread form. A pain when you are working in one of these. Most Japanese firms did a complete change at a specific chassis / frame no. Ever seen one of the little silver ISO stickers on mid '60s Jap motorcycles?
What many do not understand is that ISO threads come in fine and coarse, and also an extra fine for special applications.
For example 10mm, which is about .020" bigger then 3/8" is common with a pitch of 1.5mm (coarse), 1.25mm (fine), and 1mm (extra fine.) - 10 x 1 is common on many European and Japanese brake fittings.
Typically, automotive applications use 3, 4, 5 ,mm in fine thread;- 6, 8, mm are coarse thread;- 10, 12, are usually fine. There may be a reason...………….?
There are many exceptions, but those sizes suit most .
Confusingly, some hardware and aftermarket suppliers will choose to supply only one form, often ISO coarse,
and make little attempt to recognize anything else.
Garpo

 

Garpo, that makes sense. Most of the German stuff I have is 1960's VW, the Japanese stuff is 80's and 90's Toyota and Datsun/Nissan and Honda. I just knew from experience a VW bolt or nut usually didn't work on Japanese stuff, and vice versa. And the Japanese stuff seemed to be of better quality, too, it was usually cadmium plated while the VW stuff would be black oxide.

That also explains why a lot of the stuff from China is different, they probably use a different thread. I know a lot of the Chinese stuff doesn't fit either a metric or SAE wrench, say a 10mm will be too small and a 11mm will be too large, and a 3/8" won't fit, either.

 

"I know a lot of the Chinese stuff doesn't fit either a metric or SAE wrench, say a 10mm will be too small and a 11mm will be too large, and a 3/8" won't fit, either."

Maybe it's Whitworth!

 

Having worked in the Fastener business for 5 years I can add my 2 cents worth
the bolts you are looking for are L9 and they are available from
McMaster & Carr
https://www.mcmaster.com/l9-bolts
Kimball Midwest
https://www.kimballmidwest.com/All-Products/Fasteners/Hex-Head-Cap-Screws/L-9-Hex-Head-Cap-Screws/
Fastenal
https://www.fastenal.com/product/fa...level=3&isExpanded=true&productFamilyId=25664

 

Sometimes a person needs the correct bolt for the right job .
Manufacturers would have their logo cast or stamped on bolts , small parts or other pieces of the machine .
A friend of mine restored cross motor Case tractors. The Eagle standing on the World logo was cast on the rocker arms where no one would see it .
The IH or the earlier IHC is cast into about every piece of their machines .

 

I usually just use whatever we have on hand. [emoji16]


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Most people outside the IH Antique Tractor world don’t realize this, but Harvester made all of their own hardware. On the early stuff, their bolts can be identified by a single dot on the head in the center. The later stuff has IH on the heads like in the picture above. The last versions had W/P for West Pullman Works on the heads. When we disassemble a tractor, Dad will save all of the bolts with decent threads, tumble and clean them, and then put them away according to thread size and length. OE bolts really make a restoration look top notch.


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