Most Common Metric Fastener Sizes for Asian Vehicles?

[The Critic]

I mainly work on Asian Vehicles – Toyota, Honda and Nissan, but also own a FCA product myself.

I am in the process of building up my thread repair/restoration tool collection and would like to maintain an inventory of Timesert kits for common fastener sizes. I currently own the M6X1.00, M8X1.25, M10X1.25 and M12X1.5 kits.

From my experience, I commonly see the following fastener sizes:

M6X1.00

M8X1.25

M10X1.25

M12X1.25

M14X1.5 (Honda Oil Drain Plugs)

Which other ones am I missing?

 

[Trav]

That about covers the most common from what I know of Asian stuff, you may want to do the same in Helicoils. There are many places with not enough meat you use a Timesert.

 

[JHZR2]

Do you really find enough failed threads to need to have money caught up in all those? Especially in your climate?

When I got my time sert unit, it was delivered by Amazon next day with prime. I’d rather they hold hundreds of dollars in inventory, not me.

Id argue to build the collection in time as needed.

 

[Trav]

You make a good point, I forget not everyone lives in the rust belt.

 

[AutoMechanic]

Yeah I think that is most of them there if not all of them. I can’t remember all of them.

 

[Rmay635703]

Dash and harness stuff on HD vehicles is commonly m3, m4, m5. When we mess those up it’s usually through hole toss and replace

Certain British stuff uses the odd sizes m11/m13/m15

HD Equipment made by us companies trying to go metric m16/m20/m24


Metric is truly a mess for wrenches, half the time the stud and nut need different sizes.
Zero standardization like SAE

 

[Trav]

They are that way for a reason. Not everybody has 2 or sockets wrenches the same size. SAE is a horror that should have been thrown into the dust bin of history years ago with Whitworth.

 

[Jetronic]

Dash and harness stuff on HD vehicles is commonly m3, m4, m5. When we mess those up it’s usually through hole toss and replace

Certain British stuff uses the odd sizes m11/m13/m15

HD Equipment made by us companies trying to go metric m16/m20/m24


Metric is truly a mess for wrenches, half the time the stud and nut need different sizes.
Zero standardization like SAE

if the stud an nut have a different size, it's done on purpose... so 1 set of spanners is enough, instead of needing 2x 17mm....

m5 = 8mm
m6 = 10mm
m8 = 13mm (often 12mm on asian cars)
m10 = 17mm (often 14mm on asian cars)
m12 = 19mm

those are the "common head sizes".

 

[The Critic]

if the stud an nut have a different size, it's done on purpose... so 1 set of spanners is enough, instead of needing 2x 17mm....

m5 = 8mm
m6 = 10mm
m8 = 13mm (often 12mm on asian cars)
m10 = 17mm (often 14mm on asian cars)
m12 = 19mm

those are the "common head sizes".

The head size depends on the standard being followed. For example, JIS standard for a M8 fastener is 12mm, DIN/ANSI is 13mm.
https://www.boltdepot.com/fastener-information/bolts/metric-bolt-head-size.aspx

Do you really find enough failed threads to need to have money caught up in all those? Especially in your climate?

When I got my time sert unit, it was delivered by Amazon next day with prime. I’d rather they hold hundreds of dollars in inventory, not me.

Id argue to build the collection in time as needed.

If a few hundred dollar investment can save me downtime or embarrassment when these situations come up (which they seem to come up about once a year), it may be worth it. I also share with some other locals if they need to borrow.

 

[2EHA]

I think i’ve run into M7x1.00 from time to time on asian vehicles. Certainly more common with the europeans though

 

[Rmay635703]

They are that way for a reason. Not everybody has 2 or sockets wrenches the same size. SAE is a horror that should have been thrown into the dust bin of history years ago with Whitworth.

On an assembly line the wrench is only there to hold and the torque device should be a socket to drive and in certain circumstances there is no wrench at all due to dangers to the human holding it and the torque device holds both sides.

If you have to wrench both sides congratulations you just failed automated engineering 101

Not to mention if you can’t access the nut side you need either 2 torque devices or need to waste time changing sockets

Although there are more common metric nut/stud sizes they are by no means standard.
While SAE has one standard for hardware during the last 80 years
there are at least 6 common interchangeable standards for metric in common use and another 6 that are less common.

Due to the commodity nature of fasteners most US companies buy from the lowest bidder meaning I encounter bins of metric nuts and bolts
same PN, same thread but different head sizes in the same box, this drives our tooling budget up.

An SAE vehicle requires half the tooling to build compared to a metric build all day long and that isn’t even getting into the jacked up torque variations in metric.

True you could constrain design to only a few of the metric sizes and enforce the standard with the nut and stud matching sizes in all circumstances (which exist) but that doubles the cost of certain bolts and nuts.

I’ve lived and breathed metric in an assembly environment for a long time and metric as it stands today is nearly unworkable for a 3rd party in today’s environment, I have to imagine metric is in the place SAE was before the SAE existed.

 

[Trav]

What are you talking about? That is a bunch of gibberish and absolute B.S. you have been locked up too long time to get some fresh air.

 

[Rmay635703]

What are you talking about? That is a bunch of gibberish and absolute B.S. you have been locked up too long time to get some fresh air.

No BS we track costs and I can compare total cost, tooling and labor of identical builds before and after metric conversions

Our floor space requirements grew, our tooling budget was higher, labor grew and the material cost of the hardware is significantly higher.

We have also had more quality issues with coatings on metric fasteners.

Can live in denial but the black and white dollar costs 10 years on stay consistently higher on the metric builds than the old SAE builds

 

[Trav]

https://usma.org/going-metric-pays-off

https://www.assemblymag.com/blogs/14-assembly-blog/post/87563-u-s-auto-industry-goes-metric

 

[HangFire]

Dash and harness stuff on HD vehicles is commonly m3, m4, m5. When we mess those up it’s usually through hole toss and replace

That's work for a Rivnut, or just hammer the sheet metal against a metal block until the hole gets some bite. Or go up one size keeping the same pitch, a quick drill and tap, tap will usually catch remains of previous threads if you keep the same pitch.

They are that way for a reason. Not everybody has 2 or sockets wrenches the same size. SAE is a horror that should have been thrown into the dust bin of history years ago with Whitworth.

LOL the SAE has Metric standards. I know it's just short-hand for "Imperial Fractional" but the organization will continue to standardize metric fasteners.

https://www.sae.org/standards/content/j1237/
https://www.sae.org/images/books/toc_pdfs/HS-4000_2009.pdf
https://www.sae.org/standards/content/j2295m_200606/

 

[AutoMechanic]

I honestly prefer SAE just because I can use some different tools for a change lol I get to use them on my dads truck because it’s all SAE but either way I have at least two of every size that I own socket or wrench except 29MM it’s the only one I don’t have a duplicate of and have only needed that size once so I’m not too worried about not having a duplicate there.

 

[clinebarger]

If you add M10x1.5 & M12x1.75......You'd have domestics just about covered as well.

 

[clinebarger]

I'm glad all light duty vehicles are now Metric, Unfortunately....I got into the trade when you needed full sets of SAE & Metric tools

 

[Hall]

Metric is truly a mess for wrenches, half the time the stud and nut need different sizes.

The OP is asking about thread sizes. The size wrench or socket used has little to do with threads (granted there is typically some correlation between the two).

 

[AutoMechanic]

I'm glad all light duty vehicles are now Metric, Unfortunately....I got into the trade when you needed full sets of SAE & Metric tools

I can’t even think of the last car made with both on it I guess it was the mid 90s and early 2000s Ford and Chrysler products mostly. Nowadays it’s on nothing. That’s the newest I’ve seen SAE on except a couple of semi trucks that I have worked on the newest one with SAE was a 2007 model.