Stainless steel

Hullo all

I have seen stainless bolt and hinge kits about, which on the surface seem a good idea (especially as all my bolts are rusty) but I seem to remember reading somewhere that stainless is even worse for inducing electrolytic corrosion than the mild steel originals and should be avoided like the plague. Does anyone have any experience/opinions of using stainless on defenders?

i think you will be ok if you are using stainless steel bolts with steel components... i think you only get problems when you are using aluiminium. thats when you get the corrosion.

i may be talking bollox, but i think thats mostly right. someone more older, more experienced and generally more knowledgable should be along shortly. id like to know too as im going to be relacing my doors and bits in a month or 2.

G

they dont actually bolt into the aluminium, so really yer argument is flawed, plus the ammount of time electrolytic corrosion takes to occur, you will have sold the motor on

i see... said the blind man. thanks for the enlightenment yella

but was i right about the steel/alu interface?

G

yes but you get that with mild steel as well, i would even say its probably worse with mild steel

I put stainless bolts on mine the only lttle problem was that I had to change the nuts in the spring retainers on the doors as they were different thread.

Cheers guys, I may well give a bolt kit a go then. As for the hinges MUD charge 300 quid a set!!! wtf its stainless not titanium!

I rebuilt my 90 about 6-years ago using SS throughout (with the exception of engine, suspension & chassis fixings where zinc plated high tensile were used) and there have been no problems whatsoever. Of course everything was assembled with copperslip/grease/Waxoil and fixings come undone as easily today as if they were put together last week.

During my 90 rebuild I changed all the bolts and captive nuts with stainless. I also waxoyled all the interior of bulkhead but after only three months I am starting to see a rusty deposit on the stainless bolts. This must be coming from the bulkhead. The stainless bolts do look good but I dont think you can ever get away from the rusty deposit around the bolt heads.