After replacing my rear bump stop this weekend I came to refit the wheel and was confronted by the grotty OEM wheel bolts. As I was feeling motivated I decided to try and spruce them up.

Started with this sorry lot - a familiar sight to 100HP owners! They are degreased but pretty grotty to say the least.



I decided to see if plating was a workable solution. First I wire brushed them to a shiny finish. This improved them no end but obviously was hardly an enduring answer:



Following a soak in caustic soda to ensure they were completely clean they went into acid pickle for a minute or so to prep them for plating. Then it was into the plating tank for 40 minutes.



After the zinc plating they got 30 seconds in clear blue passivate. This gives them a blue-silver finish that is an ideal match for the OEM 100HP alloys:



But I had other ideas. Another rinse and into the yellow passivate:



The end result is a lovely bolt set looking as good as new if not better :slayer:



Those ought to be a perfect match for my gold brake calipers without being too bling and I was not mistaken - behold the loveliness:



A good match to the calipers I think you'll agree. I could have gone for a stronger yellow by leaving them in the passivate longer but that was exactly the look I was hoping for - a nice andsubtle improvement. The actual yellow of both bolts and calipers appears stronger in natural sunlight but not enough to attract the casual observer. A great contrast to the New Orleans Blue bodywork.

Obviously not everyone has a home plating kit and a new set of bolts would be a cheaper option if you don't but I already had the kit as I am using it to restore all the nuts and bolts on my MR2 restoration so it seemed a good idea and I'm very pleased with the look. I spent the rest of the afternnon doing the rest and my nuts are no longer an embarrassment to the lovely 100HP alloys

Awesome!

Thanks Ringa - it is a time consuming process and I had intended to spend the afternoon on the MR2 but I'm glad I did it as I've been meaning to give it a try for some time. Very satisfying to have them done at last now the sun is out again

This is such a great idea

I going to look at doing this as there are quite a few rusty bolts on mine (on top of the headlights) as well as the wheel bolts.

Yeah, most of the bolts on the Panda have a very low rent grey finish. A properly set up home plating kit would easily surpass that.

Here are some MR2 bits for reference:



I'm generally favouring the yellow finish as that is the OEM finish for many of the Toyota fixings but can also do blue-silver or olive drab if you have the appropriate passivates.