The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop A NUG fastener question

I have another NUG (New Useless Guy ) question, this time about fasteners. Being new to this I have recently found out how much of a pain it is getting old rusted fasteners out. I want to avoid that problem in the future. I have looked up a few posts on fasteners but wondered if anyone had several options they wanted to discuss (with pros and cons). I have seen stainless, and stainless with non-stainless nuts. What other ways can I make it easier for myself (or whoever buys my truck from me) to take things apart in the future? Thanks for all of the help (this board is one of the best and most useful boards I have ever seen... keep up the great work).

Dave

yes, neverseez is great, tho' messy - but NEVER use ss bolts w/ plain steel nuts or you risk galvanic reactions that are as bad as rust even ss bolts and nuts can react w/ the parts they hold together , resulting in corrosion of the parts [eg: fenders], so if ya do use ss fasteners, use neverseez for sure

Bill

Well, I figure that the current bolts that are on there held pretty well for 50 years and I take a lot better care of my truck now than it has been in its former life, so good old grade 5 and grade 8 fasteners are fine with me. If you want to be dressy go for the stainless, but are you really going to care if you have to replace a fender bolt again in fifty years? Most of us aren't going to be around to do it.

I find with the smaller screws and bolts that it is much easier to break it off by tightening and replace the fastener than to try to get each one out as you go. With sheet metal screws and small bolts you really don't risk much by doing that.

But Tweetch Hizowne, as my dad says.

Smokey,

The military uses a lot of fine thread bolts on their trucks and I found out very quickly that the fine threaded bolts came off a lot easier than the coarse threaded ones even when really rusty.

Now I always use fine thread bolts for replacements when at all possible.

You can get some of the stuff plumbers use on pipe threads that will work just as well as anti-seize and it is a lot cheaper and not as messy. The only thing that really needs anti-seize is spark plugs.

Stainless is nice but it just transfers the rust to a different location, namely the things you are bolting together.

Anodized fasterners as used in aircraft are the best because the coating rusts first and I have never seen one so rusty I couldn't take it apart.

Aloha, keep in mind anodize is for aluminum only, or as our brothers overseas call it (which is correct by the way) aluminium. Not many aluminum fasteners on an old Chevy. Steel fasteners are cadmium plated, either silver or gold. However, some are also black oxide, which has a trade name of parkerized. You can tell if an aluminum piece is anodized by checking conductance with an ohm-meter, anodize is non-conductive. Sorry, way off the subject. Yep, use anti-sieze.

----------------------------------------------

You have to be hardy to rest on your laurels