I have a new winner for me..
Being OCD is tough, and expensive.. I found this out durring the latest rebuild of Penny. I had finally found splined 12mm open lug nuts so I went ahead and install my new ARP front wheel studs into the ZR1 hubs. I have longer 12mm studs in the back but when I put the open lug nuts on the were just shy of coming all the way through the nuts.
It looked funny and from a tech standpoint they needed to be longer. I had bought these back when I did the three-link and they had to be custom ordered.
Specs: 12mm, full thread, 10.9, 60mm in length, 1.5 pitch
I needed them to be another 20mm longer. No problem right? Wrong.. turns out that 60mm is the longest offered. Any longer and they either droped to grade 8 (metric), gained a shoulder, or changed thread pitch to 1.75 -- They even checked Europe and no go.
So my only option was to pull the axles, drill them out and move to 1/2" -- but then I would have 12mm in the front and 1/2" in the back (here's where the OCD kicked in)
While researching online I found a place in Texas that will do custom hardened bolts. I guess they do a lot of stuff for the military and such.
http://www.zerofast.com/service.htm
Talked to them and they said "no problem".. but I only needed 10 so of course the price would be high for such a short run.
I ordered 12 (two spares) and the price was... wait for it.. $299.00
So I ordered them up and in a couple of days they arrived.. perfectly what I wanted, but they were raw steel and uncoated.
SOOOOO... off to Embee to have the Cadmium coated (after all, this would match my front studs).. Cost for this was $108.00
That means the 12 bolts cost me just over $400 or $34 PER BOLT!
All because I wanted open ended lug nuts and I'm f-d up in the head.. lol
So, what's the craziest thing you've ever shelled out cash for on your car?
