Question on Bolts

[Lynn Eades]

Stuart to go back to your original question. A plated bolt is slightly better than a black bolt. Yellow and silver plate is similar, depending on what they are. They may be zinc washed, or a better quality plate. It depends on the manufacturers process, how many microns of specified plate etc.
The more you use an anti seize, the more you or someone younger will respect/ appreciate you in the future. Some things need loctite. You can work out which ones.
I hope that is a better reply.

Rob, I think the Hotchkiss was originally built with American standard fasteners. This was probably aborted by french mechanics who may have been more familiar with metric bolts, later in the service life of those jeeps.
The French built Jeeps Dodges GMCs and who knows what else. A lot to change. (they did the French V8 blocks, All imperial except the exhaust studs?)
British Ford Cortinas and Escorts were built with a British designed motor (imperial) and a German designed gearbox (metric). Consequently the fasteners at the bell housing were metric or imperial depending on which way the bolt faced. Those cars were built at a time of transition, and for example the MkI Escorts were basically assembled with imperial fasteners, while the MkII Escorts were metric. I'm sure you have examples of the same thing in that era when Canada changed.
Now we deal with the differences in metric, between Japan, Europe, and the Australasian std, and I am forever putting my wipers on when I want to turn a corner

[rob love]

For me, the definitive authority on fasteners is all on a couple of pages of Mark's Engineering Handbook, a weighty tome of about 450 pages.

There is a chart for all the UNC/UNF bolts and thread pitches, a chart for the machine screws, and a chart for the metrics. When it comes to Metric, there are the preferred series of thread pitches, with coarse only up until somewhere around 10 mm, where there is then coarse and fine. It also lists the alternate thread pitches in the order of preference with second and third levels to them. The Iltis actually used some of those lesser preferred thread pitches, making local ordering of replacement nuts and bolts a "dealer only" choice in some cases.

The spaenur catalogue is also a good source of all the "normal' thread pitches, in both the metric and standard, They also list the DIN numbers on most of their charts for the metric fasteners.

We have a TSC here in town that also sells the bulk bolts, nuts and hardware. I wait for the sales (usually around $2.50 a pound or thereabouts) and also when they decide to rationalize their stock, they often have huge batches of their overstock at $1 a pound.

NAPA here in town has an even better selection of bulk which includes the nylon locknuts in bulk. Their hardware is only $2.79 a pound, and goes up to almost 1" sizes. Unfortunately neither NAPA or TSC carry the fine threads in bulk.

For me, it is a 60km round trip in to town, so it makes a lot of sense to buy in bulk and have them organized in their maxi bins on the wall, ready for use.

[Lynn Eades]

Rob, here is another little snippet I came across a while back;
The British and Americans came to an accord, in about 1940, about how they arrived at a foot and an inch. Prior to that, they were both different lengths (about 0.020" over two feet, not much) Due to the opposite ways they arrived at the standard.