After doing some wrenching on my bike I noticed that all the allen head screws that I put on are now showing rust inside the head. Anyone else have this problem? And what is the solution.

Thanks!

 

Replace them with polished stainless steel.

Assuming you installed chrome bolts/screws, the hex wrenches when used on the bolts' will crack the chrome plating inside the bolt head and that will lead to rust. Your other option is to clean out the rust and coat the inside of the bolt heads with clear finger nail polish.

 

Or, spray a little wd-40 into them and use a q-tip to clean the rust out and leaving some rust preventative behind. The best course of action thogh is to replace them all with stainless.

 

You can also purchase various sized chrome caps for the allen heads.

 

+1 to this. Seems to be the way to go. With chrome hardware, friends have put a drop of clear nail polish in the bolt head to keep it from rusting.

Chris

 

It's already been mentioned but I'll repeat it cause it works great. Use Q-Tips with Naval Jelly to remove the rust in the bolt heads and when they're clean and dry, coat the inside with clear nail polish. No more rust.

For more $ you can cap all the bolts with chrome Hot Toppers. You'll lose some down the road (free replacement though) and when you wrench on your bike, you'll have to take them off and some are a PITA to take off. Mechanics at dealerships don't like them cause they waste time with them and some will charge you labor to take them off and put them back on.

For much more $ you can replace all your bolts by stainless steel ones. I'm not **** to the point of doing it so I use clear nail polish and it works well enough for me.

 

Clean the rust out with naval jelly if it's bad.
Rinse well and dry well with a blower of some sort, bike dryer, leaf blower or hair dryer.
Dap a bit of Testors (or other modeling paint) silver paint in where the rust was with a small modeling brush. Gives you the color and rust protection.