Tip for bolts subject to rusting

I have been meaning to share this for a while, but it just keeps slipping my mind. I work with salt trucks and chloride tankers, and see some rusty bolts that are a pain to take out. This won't help you for the first time out, but if it's a bolt you take out more than others, such as bolts on an S cam bushing retainer, U Joint cap bolts, axle clamp bolts, or anything that may get rusty before you need to take it off again, this is what we do at work. We put regular clear silicone sealer on the threads of the bolts. Brake chambers, brake valve bolts, backing plate bolts, anything that will rust in place that isn't subjected to a lot of heat. It actually does work, I think it just seals the air and moisture from getting in there. Backing plates don't last long on a salt truck. Before trying this, the failure rate of breaking off the bolts in the holes was about 95%. After putting silicone on the bolts when reinstalling them, we now have about am 85% rate of having the bolts come out without heat or anything else without breaking off. Give it a try, doesn't cost much. Maybe this will help one of you out on something, could even be an old tractor.

Ross

Stainless steel

All of our trucks have stainless steel hard lines for hydraulics, and we replace any removed fasteners with stainless, but that really only helps a little bit when it is screwed into a steel housing. The steel housing will rust and swell onto the stainless, which seem to twist off pretty easily. They either aren't as strong, or are so hard they're brittle, not really sure.

That sounds good but I will stay with my tried and true anti seize.

I used to live next to a grumpy olde phart that had some real nasty old equipment. A backhoe (tractor type), a dump truck ('50's chev) a skidder (logging) and a bunch of misc. crap. He painted EVERYTHING with used oil (inside out, upside down). I lived next to him for about 10 years, AND all that nasty old stuff ran every year ! Also have a pal that has a LARGE collection of misc. cars (not all runners) and he still does the same thing. We are in a 'sea salt background area - close to the Pacific).

(quoted from post at 17:13:19 04/30/17) I used to live next to a grumpy olde phart that had some real nasty old equipment. A backhoe (tractor type), a dump truck ('50's chev) a skidder (logging) and a bunch of misc. crap. He painted EVERYTHING with used oil (inside out, upside down). I lived next to him for about 10 years, AND all that nasty old stuff ran every year ! Also have a pal that has a LARGE collection of misc. cars (not all runners) and he still does the same thing. [b:dd1af5ebf9]We are in a 'sea salt background area - close to the Pacific)[/b:dd1af5ebf9].

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My condolences. :wink:

Seriously, you'd think someone would have come up with a decent non-radical solution by now with so many plow trucks and commuter vehicles rusting away before their time. I know folks who have used bedliner on lower body components while the metal was still sound. Even saw one guy while in Arkansas who had covered his entire 4x4 truck in a camo pattern using bedliner.

Eh, things are supposed to change soon anyhow - flying cars (like the Jetsons), transporters, and who knows what else! Probably just a matter of time before we don't have to grow crops anymore. We'll just go over to a control panel and tell it what we want, and out will come all this steamin' hot food of the highest quality!! .....Start Trek was a fun show to watch. :lol: Ya gotta wonder how those wall-mount gizmos could whip up a plate full of beautiful beef steak and gorgeous fresh veggies out of thin air!

.....Wait, what was the topic here again?!?!? Ooops, sorry.

RBoots, I like that silicone idea. Has anyone ever tried coating a larger area with it? Would the silicone stick well against all the pounding dirt, grime, snow and water spray? Or are you only talking about putting silicone on the threads? Seems to me the best way to stop the bolts from going bad would be to prevent the salts from getting at the bolts in the first place.

Yeah, just coating the threads with it. We
tried anti seize for a long time, but it
really doesn't cut it on this stuff. We've
been doing this for a few years now and it
really works. You haven't worked on rusty
bolts until you've worked with salt trucks
and chloride tankers. My old tractors and
heavy equipment I used to work on are a
piece of cake with stuck/broke off bolts
compared to the amount of fun you'll have
with this stuff.

That sounds like it is worth trying.

One issue with stainless and salt is stainless steels can suffer chloride induced cracking under load and at high temperature. Microcracks from the chloride can start super fine cracks and then the bolt twists off sooner than it should.

Thanks, that does work!

I used to use silicone when reassembling stern drive units on boats.

They would come apart much easier, especially the ones that had stainless bolts threaded directly into aluminum.

Yes, any sort of thread sealant will help.

For those who say "just replace fasteners with stainless", that works for non-critical fasteners. 304 Stainless is a good replacement for grade 2 bolts. 316 stainless fasteners, IF YOU CAN FIND THEM, are marginal for grade 5. Grade 8? Fuhgetaboutit. Likewise with metric fasteners: stainless fasteners are typically much weaker than the commonly-used class 8.8 fasteners.

You might not want to use stainless nuts on stainless bolts as that metal is softer and welds together under load. Torch won't cut them, either. Found that out using SS take up bolts on bucket elevators used in salt and fertilizer. Had to use carbon steel nuts.
Leo

Exactly Mark, we can only use stainless on so many things on the trucks.

You can get a high grade SS bolts and you need to always use never Seize on SS this will keep them from Galling. I worked in Water/waste water treatment Construction with large flanged pipe where it was in some nasty environments and we use white lube on all of the bolts. I've taken bolts apart that was installed 20 -30 years ago and came apart with no problem, compared to no grease that had to be torched off.

Exactly.

Gun grease works pretty well for lots of things. Though that application might not work as well.