Rusty Nuts and Bolts

GarrardRJ

Commuting on my Scott Sportster 10 over the winter has caused many of the nuts and bolts on it to go rusty . Now is this something one has to suffer or can the bolts all be replaced with a non rusting variety . Now Ti bolts/nuts are expensive . Is there an alternative and also is there anywhere that would supply all of them on my bike , any helpful comments welcome and links to the supplier would be nice too . Is there a company that if i gave them the make model of my bike would be able to send me a pack of bolts to upgrade ??

danlikesbikes

TBH not sure of any shops that will sell you a 'pack' of all the bots you need or a shop that you can send your bike make/model too and they will do this for you. My LBS are quite helpful though & if I took my bike in I'm sure they would order me all the nuts, bolts etc to replace so you might want to consider that as an option.

As for your problem the simple answer is either pay more money for rust proof nuts/bolts, save money on the initial cost and replace or save money on the initial cost and spend time/money on cleaning and maintaining your ride.

You don't have to suffer if you don't want to but you do need to either spend more money or dedicate some time to maintenance.

GarrardRJ

What annoys me about it is that it is made to be outside , its not as if i'm gonna ride it indoors and its only a bout 15 months old ! Now i would expect a £2-300 bike to get rusty nuts etc but a £1000 one i would have thought stainless steel bolts would be a norm as a minimum ?? The stem bolts are the main issue and are on display as soon as you approach the bike . I will probably replace them only , for the sake of about £12 if theres not an easy order upgrade available for all of them .

danlikesbikes

If your that worried about it why not as you suggest upgrade as you go along but with more expensive bolts or if your just going to do them part by part you could end up with Forth Bridge scenario where you finish the bike only to find out you need to start again at the stem.

MichaelW

Buy some stainless steel allen bolts. I get mine from a hardware store where they sell them individually.
Use grease or copper anti-sieze on the threads and wipe or spray the exposed top with wax, eg furniture polish, car wax (taking care not to wax the braking surfaces)
Most bike bolts are 5mm thread but some are smaller. Get the correct length.

Dirty-Boy

15 months and now rusty isn't too bad, being near the sea I quite often work on 2-3 month old bikes with rusty bolts. You can get stainless steel bolts off eBay quite cheap

desweller

Just find your local engineering supplies store. They'll sell you everything you need for peanuts.

rolf_f

I'm renovating an old Raleigh tourer which has a full set of rusty allen bolts.

Just bought 20 stainless steel bolts off Ebay - about £2.65 posted irrc. Or you can get titanium ones from a bike shop for probably £2.65 each!

The Rookie

Vaseline.....
Bike bolts are coated, but once the coating is damaged and rust starts it doesn't last long, vaseline (a thin smear) works wonders...the daughter lives very close to the sea (litterly I could throw a pebble in from her garden if it weren't for the houses in the way) and they get salt water spray landing, the bolts have been fine all this last winter despite starting to go rusty the year before just before we applied it.