I always noticed the wheel bolts looked to be in rusting pretty bad. My rims have some bad curb rash and its not like I can really see the wheel bolts when installed so it doesnt really bother me. I was recently electroplating some parts in nickel for another project and got to thinking about plating the wheel bolts. After researching i think zinc would be better than nickel. I live in New England so there alot of salt on the roads in winter plus i live right on the coast and deal with salty air.

I have come across a few things online of people refinishing wheel bolts, mostly painting them. I'm just looking for more info, anyone have luck refinishing them? there is nothing wrong with the wheel bolts so i have no desire to spend alot of money buying new ones or refinishing them. I already have everything for the plating except i did just order some zinc anodes for $10. I find electroplating fun so its more of a fun hobby.

While waiting for the zinc i did one wheel bolt in nickel. It was just a quick test, scrubbed the wheel bolt with an sos pad then dunked the head in the nickel for a few minutes. It does look much better. To remove rust I would typically sock the part in vinegar for a day.

I was looking thru the manual and came across some useful info. For the brakes it mentions using a zinc dust paint so ill have to research more on the topic.








Heres after dunking in the nickel for a few minutes.

 

Electroplating is a great idea. But since you live in an area with a lot of salt either on the roads in winter or from the ocean spray, zinc may not have the durability you want.

If you copper plate first, then nickel plate it, that should be both bright and durable.

What electrolytes are you using?
Common for zinc is zinc chloride and table salt. Better is zinc pyrophosphate and potassium hydroxide. There is a zinc cyanide solution available that I would stay away from.
Nickel plating usually uses the Watts solution that can be obtained online. Nickel chloride and nickel sulfate can also be used. Nickel ammonium sulfate is a single component electrolyte.

Lots of information available online these days because crafters are getting into it heavily.

BTW - You probably know not to plate the threads with anything other then zinc.

 

So far I have only played around with nickel electroplating. For the nickel plating solution I use vinegar and mix in a little salt, use a stick of nickel hooked to the positive and a stick hooked to negative and run it until the positive is fully dissolved in the solution. For the power supply I just use a standard 5v 2amp usb type phone charger. To plate a part I hook a stick of nickel to the positive and then connect the negative to the part and dunk it in the nickel solution for a minute or two.

I tried doing the same with zinc and it didnt come out good. The sticks of zinc turned black, the positive stick was producing alot of bubbles which I dont think is right. I unhook the power and it still will bubble. I think I was using too many amps, probably too many volts too. I have to find a different solution mixture, I read i should be using distilled water with just a little vinegar mixed in, maybe add some sugar.

I tried doing one in zinc but didnt come out good. I probably didnt have it clean enough but i had to use the car so was in a rush. I tried it on an old drain plug also. I read about hydrogen embrittlement that can occur and make the metal crack when plating so I didnt do the threads at all.





Heres after I cleaned off most of the rust. Still some rust left that wouldnt easily scrub off with steel wool.





Heres after. The wheel bolt coating looks black at areas.

 

First let me say that your zinc plating doesn’t look bad. Maybe not perfect, but that’s probably a cleaning issue like you said.

The sugar you heard about is a brightener. It might give the results you’re looking for. For the voltage, it think your 5V power supply is okay, but it might be depositing the zinc a little too fast. That can lead to a powdery coating that doesn’t want to shine.

Here is a post of a person doing zinc plating on car parts. He’s using honey as the sugar.

https://www.gomog.com/allmorgan/ZincPlatingAtHome.html