Hello Everyone,
Great discussion and input. As I mentioned earlier, several years ago, I replaced most of my original, and/or the generic hardware my car accumulated over the years from its previous owners, from bumper to bumper that was rusty or pitted beyond "show quality" condition. I probably spent between $1000 - $1500 at AMK, Paragon, and Larry Christensen to assembly the hardware I needed. When I get time, I'll pull my AIM and my AMK catalog that contain my notes which list all the places in the AIM where a common used hardware is found as I has done earlier in this discuss thread.
Again, it's most important when we post pictures of hardware that is from original and/or survivor cars, that we also share where the hardware is used, the car's build date and build plant. The bolt/nut thread spec's are also is good info, but it is very helpfull if you have an AIM, to state the page number, detail number, and the GM part number assigned to the hardware. Once we know this info, we can can cross reference the hardware part number with that in the AMK's catalog number and determine the spec on the hardware: i.e. thread size, length, etc.
If we keep this up, eventually we can provide an extremely helpful hardware restoration guide for virtually all the primary components on our cars. As I was restoring my hardware, I thought about making a hardware guide with a 3-ring binder with the page from the GM AIM on one page, and a pictorial references on the opposite page of original hardware, with cross references to the hardware in the AMK catalog. If this guide where to be made for sale, licensing from GM to use the AIM would be required, but this guide would save countless hours restoring a 1st Gen, particularly if you buy one missing the drive train, had an original component replaced and generic hardware was used, etc.
Your thoughts?