I know this is a dumb topic, but forgive me. It'* late.

I want to take my strut tower bar off so I can paint it. I have to get rid of some rust on it first though. The bolts holding it on are rusted quite a bit too. Hopefully I can get them off. But when I do, can I just get any old bolts the same size to put it back on? I'm hoping that it'* not rusted so much that the threading will fall apart on the 'nipples' or whatever you want to call them.

If it is and I can't get it back on afterwards, I'll be back with some more questions :?

Just be careful, rusted bolts can be a biznitch. License plate bolts have those problems a lot from what i can tell. Sux cause if you take it off and you need it and can't get it on you need another car to get new ones. I was trying to get my strut off tonight, but none of our sockets i could find fit it...

Do ppl suggest that I try to take it off? Or would that be too risky? I would like it to be gold, and painting it while it'* on would also be a b**ch. :?

I wasn't too sure either, i was asking myself would the engine bay sides above the tires close in a little cause the strut bar wasn't there?!?! I guess it should be ok, after all it IS removable...

Where'd you get your wires? I'm looking into a set of taylors, dont know what size though, or where to start looking. I'm also looking at painting the lettering on my engine cover, i'll need some high-temp paint wont I?

It should be removable. I think the nuts are metric size, at least mine are.

BonnieBoiMN, I got the wires from Hector at Angryducktofuracing.com, but I don't know if his store'* up and running. They were $50. And for the lettering on the engine cover, you won't need high temp paint for that. You could use it but if it'* just the letters you want to paint they'll hold up fine with regular paint. I just used some gold model paint.

They are. Make sure replacements are the same grade as what you take off. Most likely the grade on metric bolts is going to read either "8.8" or "9.8"; take a look. For suspension stuff I would assume everything'* 9.8 at least.

The numbers are also stamped on metric nuts, according to what the service manual says, although the numbers may be hard to find. The book says that on nuts, the numbers are stamped on the face of the nut next to the threads. You'd think they could just stamp the numbers on the flats where they'd be easy to read, but noooo...

I think I'll wait to take the bar off since I don't have a service manual yet, and the nuts are too rusted too read any #* on them.

Thanks, i was probably gonna do model paint then, any suggestions, red yellow? Maybe just silver again. Anyways 94sse, i think a red strut bar, with the ends gold would look very very nice in your engine bay!