Well I will be hopefully putting my mini back together very soon and I have a lot of crusty looking nuts and bolts. Is there a recomended means of rejuvenating them or do I have to fork out for new nuts, bolts etc. Im trying to keep spending to a minimum and could imagine replacing all the nuts and bolts to be an expensive excercise.

Kero bath the old ones.
Replace nylocks.
And the REALLY rusty / cross threaded ones
THey really arent that expensive.
Go to Motor Traders or similar (Sweetmans Fasteners) for your bolts and nuts.

Well from my experience with kero baths etc is yes they make them look good in the short term but they rapidly age afterwards. Maybe I will have to go buy new ones.

Speaking of nylocks, I dont think I had many on my mini. What bollts should they be on?

Why not try a wire wheel to clean them up and Make sure any Nylocs are replaced, once the nylon is deformed it is not as good as when new. Many people use them again but it is not what the makers intended, if you want to be sure replace them.

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Mini K, 1310, Jet Red/Crystal White Roof, Rover Interior

75 Clubman

get a bench grinder with a wire wheel, I use mine almost daily...

A great tool invented with the purpose of grabbing bolts out of your hand and hurling them across the workshop.

You can always hold them with locking multigrips and then it can throw the whole thing across the workshop

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Mini K, 1310, Jet Red/Crystal White Roof, Rover Interior

75 Clubman

it is worth replacing as many bolts as u can, especially the bolts that will subjected to higher loads. i have just finished my moke and replaced mosts of the bolts and it was a welcomed change to not have to stuff around with old rusty crap. it was almost enjoyable. make sure you replace nyloks and also dont forget spring washers shound be replaced aswell. i think it cost me 100 bucks for all new bolts, nuts and washers for the moke and that has covered the entire car and most of the engine. worth it trust me

Take bucket of bolts to zinc plater(in the phonebook),

Hand over thirty dollars and choose gold or silver plating (gold looks greeaaat!)


You would pay someone just to clean them, but they will come up amazing. They are dipped to remove all oil, grease, paint and flesh first. Then they plated.
The bonus is you can chuck anything else into the bucket while you are at it. Chuck in your brackets, heat shields, plates, washers, anything.

All the original production marks will come up again, and they look amazing.
Not reccomended on really hi-tensile stuff like cylinder head studs.
Springs need to be normalised as well, simply chuck them in the oven on max for an hour or two.

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

im also about to start putting my mini back together and was gonna ask a similar question. After reading the above posts ive decide to replace as many of the botls as i can however i dont know what grade bolts to use. So should i just use the highest grade bolts and nylocs for everything? and does anybody know a good place to get them around Wollongong?

Cheers

A tip I got for crusty bolts was this...

Buy some POR15 Marine Clean and POR15 Metal Ready. Both are cheap metal treating products.

Take your fuel tank and partly fill it with the Marine Clean. Put ALL your bolts into the tank and shake for about 5 minutes. Drain and repeat with the Metal Ready.

What you end up with is this:

A VERY clean fuel tank, with no crud or rust at all, and all your bolts will be squeaky clean, and have a nice grey colouring to them, as the Metal Ready treats the surface of them (and the tank)



I am going to do exactly this with my GT's tanks and bolts.

Get an ice cream container and fill it with degreaser or whatever cleaner you want.
Strap a fist tank pump to it, and throw the bolts in. Put the 'in' line to the bottom of the container and the 'out' to the top.
The vibrating of the container will help the stuff do its magic, and the pump keeps the mix circulating round.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will give it a shot and let you all know what works best. I will try to replace as many nuts and bolts as possible but it could be hard tracking down suitable nuts and bolts.

JAM do you use the tank repair kit POR15 sell or just those cleaners?

Or, you can buy a nickel or zinc plating kit from http://www.janekits.com.au/
for around $140.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Cheaper to make your own kit

http://antique-engines.com/electrol.asp

or another version

http://www.stovebolt.com/techtips/rust/ ... usting.htm

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Chris

Everything I like is either
illegal, immoral or fattening.