[Fred T]

None of the fasteners on these trucks are an interference fit, which puts your bolt and hole tolerances in the thousandths. Most of the holes are considered a class 3 fit, which is roughly a .250 diameter bolt in a .281 diameter hole.

I consider the fastener kits a good investment. I bought a Totally Stainless kit for my 69, everything was labeled for where they went. They were the correct length and diameter, and far cheaper than buying the bolts from a hardware store. You also get the correct lockwashers.

I bought one kit that was from a foreign maker, but will not repeat that mistake. I had problems and showed the results to a metallurgist at work. We determined that the bolts had not been heat treated.

If you go with a stainless bolt kit, all of the bolts need to have either a thread-locking compound or anti-seize compound to prevent thread galling, which is where the metal of the bolt and nut threads become one, making it impossible to remove the bolt. I also will not put a stainless bolt together with a stainless nut, which will gall even with a compound.

My experience comes from engineering at Boeing, where I did a lot of work on B-52 structure repair, fastener design and corrosion control.