jdgunn

I'm rebuilding a car that was maintained by morons who lost a lot of bolts. For example, the oil pan was missing 3 bolts, 2 were allen head, 1 was too long so they put about 10 washers on it. They used random bolts with the wrong thread pitch on the motor mounts and just wrenched them in. They lost one of the thick washers for the 17mm nut on the bottom and the nut almost pulled through the crossmember.

I've never not had a parts car laying around so I've never had this problem before... Where do I buy bolts/nuts/washers? Do I just go to Home Depot?

JohnKoaWood

Contact jlturpin on here, he MIGHT be able to assist, I know a while back he had re-plated OEM hardware, a couple sets IIRC...

Potomac-Greg

I just bought a "metric assortment" at Paragon Products. About $60.00.

It's not going to have everything (e.g. allen head, triple square, etc.) but enough to get the job done.

For very special needs, McMaster Carr or Fastenal (on the web) has everything (at a price).

roman944

isn't there eagle day or something like that, they have complete sets of zinc/anti-corrosion coated nuts/bolts/washers sets

Calmchaos

Yeah eagleday is where I got most of my bolts. I used McMaster-Carr for the rest.
http://www.eagleday.com/fayzi.html

roman944

ah, then maybe you can provide some insight as to what kind of bolts/nuts/washers they have in there?

just generic, or specifically for things like intake manifold, exhaust manifold, plugs on cam tower?

User 52121

Not sure if you have Ace Hardware down by you there in STL but they have a pretty good selection of metric nuts and bolts at the two Ace's close to me.

Home Depot is useless when it comes to anything metric.

Potomac-Greg

I've found Lowe's near me has a solid selection. It must be a complete PITA to keep a hardware section stocked. People move crap from bin-to-bin, and you need to keep up on items that run out. Gotta be the worst job in the store!

Mikeran

I had great luck buying one of those assorted hardware lots on EBay, a couple of the guys that part out cars throw all the nuts/bolts, fastners, clamps, and misc into a box and then sell them for like $30 plus shipping. I bought one and so far ever time I need something I have found it in that assortment. Just a thought.

Funn944

Home Depot = thumbs down, and the manager of the hand tools section didn't even know what a flare nut wrench was, much less have any ! I have a local True Value that has a great selection of metric hardware.
Lowe's most of the time has what I need as well.

Calmchaos

Basically just a bunch of generic hex head, and allen cap bolts with some washers. All zinc dichromate plated.
I've used about 1/3 of them maybe, it's not specific to the car at all. Not a bad value for the number of yellow zinc bolts, but I wouldn't really recommend it in all honesty. The best things in there are the shallow head allen fasteners. Not really easy to find those anywhere else.

I'm sure they would send you a list of all bolts and washers. There are certainly no cam tower plugs in the set.

mike10562004

lowes or homedepo i got all my misc bolts there

roman944

Hm. Something to think about.

Our Lowe's has metric bolts and stuff. Not sure if I have seen allen bolts or anything weird like that though. May have to check it out.

josephsc

I've used bolt depot ( http://www.boltdepot.com/ ) as another source -- particularly handy if you just need one or two of a particular size.

I would often look up all the needed bolts on PET, and order bolts before starting a project.

jdgunn

thanks for all the tips. I'm actually surprised stainless steel bolts from the hardware store are ok to use. I assumed the zinc coating was there for a reason.