HIWAY ONE Posted June 27, 2003 Share Posted June 27, 2003 a good source for replacing fasteners. I'm doing the entire front suspension and have had a bolt heads twist off, had to cut the nut on the tie rod off and had to drill the bolt that holds the steering knuckle and ball joint to the strut case. Is the dealership the only option or does someone like NAPA carry this stuff? Terry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim240z Posted June 27, 2003 Share Posted June 27, 2003 I ordered boxes of the common size metric nuts and bolts from http://www.mcmaster.com/ You may be able to find somewhere locally that sells bulk fasteners. Look in the yellow pages under fasteners, or hardware. Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wagz Posted June 27, 2003 Share Posted June 27, 2003 I've seen Tim reference McMaster-Carr before and this is the first time I have followed the link to take a look. Holy smokes! What a great resource! This is bookmarked forever more... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boobala Posted June 27, 2003 Share Posted June 27, 2003 Wow, wish I'd know about http://www.mcmaster.com a long time ago. Neat place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j260z Posted June 28, 2003 Share Posted June 28, 2003 if you want to get fancy you can always get every bolt for your car in stainless from here http://shop.zcarcreations.com/searching.asp?cat=Stainless&cR=default Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zcarnut Posted June 28, 2003 Share Posted June 28, 2003 A word of caution here... Suspension bolts are carefully chosen for their application. Do not substitute any suspension (or even drivetrain and brake component) bolt unless you know for sure that the substitute fastener is equivalent (or better) than the bolt you are replacing. Fortunately for us there is a making on the head of the bolts that Nissan uses: #4 Tensile strength 57,000 lbs/square inch #7 Tensile strength 100,000 lbs/square inch #9 Tensile strength 128,000 lbs/square inch #11 Tensile strength 150,000 lbs/square inch If you do not know the engineering specs of the substitute bolt then do not use it in a critical application. Another concern is the fact that the tightening torque [you do know you should use a torque wrench on _every_ bolt] is a function of the tensile strength of the bolt. I have seen too many bolts fail because a weaker one was torqued to the “correct” value for that application. Now it is OK to replace the numerous automotive non-critical fasteners with stainless steel or chromed ones, but suspension bolts? No way. Ask yourself this: What are the consequences if this bolt fails? Often we modify our Z cars (this is the HybridZ forum) and we can place additional stress on the suspension. Using correct bolts is just another technique that separates a real mechanic from a shadetree one. If you’re a cheapskate (like myself) then get some used bolts at the junkyard. As along as they are not rusty, then they will be fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimZ Posted June 28, 2003 Share Posted June 28, 2003 One additional point to this is that many (if not most) of the bolts in the suspension are stressed in shear, not tension. So you need to know the shear strength of the bolt you are replacing in many cases, and this is harder to find. As I recall, the shear strength of a fastener does not necessarily increase with tensile strength, either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CU Zcar Posted June 29, 2003 Share Posted June 29, 2003 I'm pretty sure you are right, I think I once read that Grade 8 bolts are weaker than lower-grade bolts in shear for example. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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