Pins and Caps

With an old car you're always on a search for hardware. Or at least I am! Here's a couple of pieces that I found hard to find, and some other sources for replacements.

Hinge Pins:

Hinge pins are hard to get. They are 8mm Clevis pins with a slot for a clip. Luckily 8mm is only .0024inches different than 5/16", so there's another whole world of English measurement options:

Original Pin, New Clevis Pin, New Clevis Pin in Hinge

Assembled Hinge with Stainless Washer Spacers

I got my Clevis pins from McMaster Carr. They were inexpensive.

Axle Pins:

Axles require pins as well. I had to saw mine off of my heavily corroded axles, so I needed to find a new source.

German Club (top) and generic (bottom)

I took a deep breath and decided to purchase the German Club pins at $12.00 each. They were very nice, and obviously took a lot of machine work to make (an integrated grease channel and grease fitting on the end are not cheap to fabricate).

Too bad  they don't fit!

Unfortunately they did not fit under the car; the entire assembly was too long. I purchased a generic version  of a 10mm pin with 8mm threaded end for $1.35 each from BoltDepot.com. They are not stainless, so I make sure to keep them well lubricated.

Caps:

The rear bonnet hinges originally had a large rivet that was peened over into a nice semi-circular cap. If I had a lifetime to practice I could probably do a competent job creating such an end. 

I took a different approach instead: I purchased a large rivet from the UK club and used a zinc plated end cap. These are available at your local hardware store for about 40 cents each, and look great.

Heinkel Bonnet Hinge with Rivet and Zinc end cap

The come in really handy in another place: the sunroof. The arm is usually held on by a clip, which in my case looked flimsy and fell off. The caps look tailor made for this application:

Heinkel Convertible Top Arm held in place with Zinc end cap

Another view of the end cap on the Heinkel top

Have you come up with any unusual hardware replacements for your car? Let me know!