a question on fasteners.

hello. I am starting to do some work on my bronco. I have a reproduction body for it and I am stripping it down to primer it. the people who built the body Delco Nick from northeast classic ford parts used zinc dichromate fasteners. the yellow colored ones. they look good and I understand they are pretty good as far as corrosion resistence. and less likely to gall then stainless steel my question is, when you put the thing back together for paint, do you all paint the fasteners, or leave them the bare metal. or do you prefer to use stainless steel etc.

so basically I would like some opinions and pictures of how you go about assembling the body parts for paint. what fasteners you use, whether painted or left bare, and what they look like when finished. and how they hold up over time.

I painted panels separated, zinc'd the bolts, then bolted them on leaving the hardware zinc gold colored.

http://classicbroncos.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3055249&postcount=190

You can kind of see the gold zinc's bolts on the fenders here but I don't have a closeup. I'll take one when I get home.

http://classicbroncos.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3142335&postcount=228

I happen to not mind any of the above. I usually paint the standard factory uncoated fasteners either black, or the body color.
I think the factory did actually paint some bolts the body color, but other than the obvious front fender and door bolts, I don't know what others might have gotten some kind of coating.

If they're bare I paint 'em. If they're zinc'd already, I usually leave them, but not always.
If they're stainless, I usually leave them bare. But the color of the body and the location sometimes dictates that. Sometimes I just don't like the shiny bling of stainless bolts all over the place.
But in most positions I love 'em.

The brand new bolts you can get from companies like Dorman are already e-coated black, which is very nice. But they're not cost effective to do the whole body that way.
There might be other sources for them though.

For gold cad plated ones like you have, I might leave most of them alone, but the front fender top bolts that show (the ones you're showing in your pic of course) I would likely paint body color. Probably about an 80% chance I'd paint 'em.

The only issue that detracts from paint (especially body color) is the fact that they often chip or otherwise get befuddled when you turn the wrench loose on them.
The plated ones are the most resistant to looking silly when installed and removed a few times.

I'm sure that was not help. Good luck on that decision!

Paul

Here’s a thread that may help. I never have liked painted fasteners..... black oxide is my favorite on a vehicle.
http://classicbroncos.com/forums/showthread.php?t=284674

I started my career at Fords at the Michigan Truck Plant on the final assembly line in front end build up. The front fenders, grill and the hood were painted upstairs separate from the body and assembled and installed after the the body was decked to the frame. The dash and tailgate was painted upstairs too. I did not work in trim the area where the painted body was mostly assembled though I walked past paint dept and never saw a body without doors. As for the numbers on the rad support they were probably rotation numbers. The cad plated bolts were because of the post painting assembly.

AZ73 said:

I painted panels separated, zinc'd the bolts, then bolted them on leaving the hardware zinc gold colored.

http://classicbroncos.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3055249&postcount=190

You can kind of see the gold zinc's bolts on the fenders here but I don't have a closeup. I'll take one when I get home.

http://classicbroncos.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3142335&postcount=228

Click to expand...

yeah I would like to see a close up pic of how you did your fender and door bolts if you could thanks.


and just to clarify. I am a restomodder. not a restorer. I have no interest at all in making it historically correct. I am interested in what works best and looks best. I am concerned about the idea of painting the bolts off the body because they tend to chip. I have heard that stainless fasteners have a bad tendency to gall but I like the way they look, I don't mind the yellow zinc fasteners, but I was not sure if leaving them as is was a good idea for long term. so basically I am hoping to see some examples of different fasteners to see what looks best, and why people chose them. btw I don't have a problem with historically correct restorations. but my vehicle is going to be built from the aftermarket, so it makes no sense to try to keep it looking "original". it was already modified when I got it and there was nothing special about it from the factory, other than that it IS a bronco. thanks for the help

I went a little insane on Zinc. It becomes an addiction. Most of the bolts are grade 8 just to get the coating. I bought them in boxes of 100 from Bolt Depot. A lot cheaper than going to ACE one at a time. The fender and door bolts I had coated when I had a lot of the parts zinc'd - pedals, rods (door and tailgate), all the strike plates and latches, U bolts on the rear axle etc. I was just going to do a few parts but they had a minimum so I basically got everything zinc'd for the minimum. The wheel trim bolts are from a Method Standard 2, but I purchased them separate and put them on the Standard. Just about every bolt and screw is zinc. Most of the rest is SS as they came with the hardware or I just couldn't source a zinc piece (mostly screws). I figure all in it only added about $200 extra, and most of that was the minimum.

Here are the rest of the pictures. As a side note, my painter lost a couple of the zinc'd door bolts so he bought new ones, punched holes in a piece of cardboard, put the bolts in and painted all 24. They chipped when he installed them so I didn't take a picture of them. I'll be replacing them with standard Grade 8s to fix it since I'd have to pay the minimum again just to plate the real door bolts. Once they're in you can't tell the difference that the bolts are threaded all the way to the end. At least he didn't lose the front fender screws that go where the front of the door is. He also lost 1 of the 3 screws that hold the striker in and I had to use a SS replacement. You can see it in the picture. Bottom right screw.

that looks great with the color of your bronco. I plan to paint mine some shade of blue. trying to get all the people in my family who seem to have pretty strong opinions about it lol to agree on a color has proven very difficult. so some shade of blue seems to be the best bet. probably grabber blue I like that color a lot. even though I have seen several early broncos painted that color already. I would guess it would still look good. stainless would also look good since I plan to use some chrome and polished aluminum under the hood.