Originally Posted by
justinschulz9
which bolts and what material (metal) are the best suited for maintaining shape and not stripping over time?
should certain bolts be greased?
im noticing more cheap bikes with stripped and shredded bolts which make them impossible to work on. if you had the choice to replace every bolt on a bike, what type of tool goes best with avoiding a stripped scenario.
even cheap tools can last a long time if you look after them, don’t use them sloppily and don’t expect more from than them they were designed for. Many of my tools are from Harbor Freight, and I’ve used them for over a decade of major automotive work. I don’t think I ever throw out a used tool, but I take them out of “good” use and use them to adapt for one-off purposes. For example, I had a very long needle-nose pliers in which the pivot was developing play. Relegated to the “drawer of retired tools”. When rebuilding an old overdrive unit, I came across a monster (~3” diam) circlip. I took a dremel to the tips of the pliers and converted them to a dedicated big circlip tool. Pliers have a second life a seldom-used but viable specialist tool.
I buy “mission-critical” (eg holding my car together) fasteners from a specialist supplier like McMaster, but you generally have to buy in bulk, whereas a Big Box or Ace will sell smaller quantities. stainless fasteners - even Big Box stainless, will be better than the plated crap found in most cheap bikes. Grade 8 or even Grade 5 fasteners are massive overkill for bicycle applications. I think the only place I went McMaster for the bike was replacing the Ti screws on a Cinelli stem with some good quality steel equivalents. Small screws, IMO, aren’t the best application for Ti, especially on a 2-screw bar clamp where one screw failure is enough to cause the bars to come completely adrift.