Stainless Steel Advice

[Gerald-TVR]

Advice and guidance please. Its obvious that SS shouldn't be used for suspension componants and that its fine for things like the brackets for AFMs.

But what about the things in between for example the bolts hold the steering rack clamps and those bolting the brake backplates to the trailing arms. I'm thinking they will be OK but what do you say?

Norman

[Barkychoc]

All I've read is that stainless can be brittle so personally I would not use it for safety related components - bright zinc plated (BZP) is what I've used.

I fixed my outside gate with some BZP bolts 4 years ago and they still look good as new.

[Alan Whitaker]

Hi Norman.
Stainless looks nice but some bolts require a tensile rating above stainless, I think high tensile quality bolts have a strength number stamped on them ie 10.2

Alan

[Barkychoc]

Yep - 'normal' bolts have 8.8 on the head. I know the bolts holding the brake calipers on are 10.something. Beware of cheap stuff (B&Q) they have nothing marked on the heads at all.

[pies]

Cheap stainless nuts and bolts can bind on themselves. Its where the thread is cut on cheap dies.Once they have locked up only option is to cut them

[magpies]

BTW the best lubricant for st.st fixings is Milk of Magnesia. We used galeons of the stuff at the Nuc Power Station to stop st st pick up

[wheels1]

Hi Norman.
I think you should be fine for small bolts, say up to M8. I used loads of M6 SS bolts on my RX7, the mild steel ones that it came with where plated and looked like new, but when it came to undoing them they just snapped off and i ended up drilling and tapping loads for the under tray etc.
I think i bought the ss one's from screw fix and they seemed good quality and where not magnetic [ some cheap one's can be if poor quality ss. is used].
saying all that zinc plated one's will probably out last both of us!
Grant

[bil]

found the following pages interesting relating to bolts,torque wrenchs and stainless steel choices, page 1 in a series of 3, http://home.jtan.com/~joe/KIAT/kiat_1.htm

[CNHSS1]

anything that stops the car driving properly, steering, brakes, suspension etc, dont use stainless. for all other bits its ok. my old boss was also a director of a sepcialist fasteners company in Brum and always supplied me with steel for safety concious areas and SS for the pretty bits. he had dozens of horror stories from the auto, train and building industries of correct sized. but wrong material/spec bolts failing.
also avoid chrome plated bolts for safety concious areas as they can suffer from hydrogen embrittlement during the plating process causing the heads to fly off!! .
use steel bolts or cap head hi tensile for safety areas and good ol paint.

[Gerald-TVR]

Great information Stainless for bling bits and high tensile steels elsewhere _ thanks everybody much appreciated.

Norman