Replacing all bolts with stainless?
 

I'm crazy, some people might say extremely dedicated, and would like to replace all the bolts in my engine bay with stainless steel. Is there any comprehensive list floating around out there, sort of like a shopping cart list, that I can just take to the store with me?



~M~

Really not a good idea because of galvanic corrosion between the stainless and aluminum. It is particularly bad when a lot of moisture is present (water pump housing, t-stat housing…)

Dan

Couldn't you just use a sacrificial anoid?

Wow, is this true, I changed most of my nuts and bolts in the engine bay to stainless...

You'll get that response with almost any bolt since it's two dissimilar metals in contact with each other. The real solution is to isolate the cooling system from the electrical system to retard or eliminate the catalyst for the reaction to occur, since there's always going to be a grounding effect from the charging system on the block it's just about impossible to do. The next best thing is a sacrificial anode. It's just a stud that will get eaten instead of the aluminum saving the pieces of your engine and radiator.

I don't disagree, overtime any bolt is susceptible, but most automotive bolts have been galvanized or chemically treated to drastically reduce the corrosion. Stainless by its very nature is left untreated.

With my airpump delete pulley kit for singles all of the hardware is stainless except for the one bolt that goes into the water pump for this reason.

Dan

Your best bet will be to take all your bolts clean them and have them re-zinc plaited gold black or clear zinc.

Much cheaper than buying new bolts....

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/2869/bolts001m.jpg
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/bolts001m.jpg/1/w800.png

Nice!

A shop up in Canada here (rotary dynamics) gets alot of their hardware cad plated.

That might be an option to consider as well as zinc.

The cad'd bolts I've used from them have stood up very well, with nuts/bolts on the waterpump/housing also.

As for actual sizes, depending on EXACTLY what you want to change, most of the bolts and nuts are pretty standard metric threads, with the exception of a few bolts that are odd lengths or odd shoulders.

I am using SS allens through out .After four years I pullied alot of the parts from the motor including the water pump housing to have parts repowercoated .No bolts or screws were eaten or hard to remove . All the alum is ,threads , in good shape as well .So after 4-5 years I see no problem with SS bolts ,screws and washers .