My old tips were extremely tarnished and I was fed up with their appearance, but I just can't justify paying for the big oval tips right now, so....

I had a go at polishing the old ones, to get me by. I used one of those drill-mounted discs made of layers of cotton fabric, in conjunction with Autosol metal polish. Took about an hour for the first tip. Just reapplied polish and buffed it off, over and over...

 

The results were pretty good, but I have only been able to do one tip because the bolt on the second tip is the rustiest lump of **** I have ever seen!

What's the best way to undo a bolt in this state? Grind the whole thing off?

 

Considering what that looks like, agree a wrench will likely never do it. Don't know if you can get a Dremel cutoff wheel tool in there to cut it off (wear eye protection; those cutoff wheels disintegrate like crazy).

 

Hey Graham,
That's not a garage queen, some serious salt collection on there :-). Good luck with the chopping!

 

If the nut and bolt are in good enough shape to get a wrench and socket on them just tighten and if they don't move you'll just break it right off.

 

But grinding was the only answer for one of mine (@ 30,000 miles)

Cheers, Maurice

 

I used a cutoff tool on mine. I replaced them with SS hardware, hopefully I won't need the cutoff tool next time.

 

graham

Like yourself, I spent some serious time bringing my Boxster tip back to shiney - with Autosol and lots of muscle.

Recently I looked at my Boxster S .....and thought "great here we go again"
I mentioned it in passing to the guy that gives my car a quick detail each week.

He had them shiney in less than 1 min - by hand !!!
What did he use ?
- a Citrus based household cleaner purchased from the supermarket

 

And... (the million dollar question)... what was the name of the product?

 

I didn't actually ask !

But now that you ask, I will ask him, and post the answer tomorrow........

cheers
Q

 

Graham - I had to cut all mine when I did my RSR and oval tips installation.
Get a Dremel and wear some glasses!!

Make sure you replace with stainless steel bolts...

 

Thanks for all the tips - I'm borrowing a dremel from a friend.

I'm using zinc galvanised steel bolts because they are the only type I could find locally. Should they be ok? I would prefer an alloy. Any online sources?

 

if you are using regular zinc bolts, use some anti-seize compound on the threads. the heads will still eventually rust though.
if you can't find stainless bolts/nuts in the proper metric size, just use a close equivilent imperial size. use anti-seize with the stainless too!
max

 

"Gleam It"

 

Check here for some stainless bolts: http://www.metricspecialties.com/Shop/products.htm

I'm thinking of changing all my exhaust system bolts one of these days.. I just have to look up all the specs in the PET cd.