Stainless Steel Metric Nuts & Bolts

[JerseyCruiser]

Has anyone found a good source for stainless metric nuts & bolts?
I live in the rust belt and need some for some exhaust work and other exterior repairs. Its great knowing that down the road I will be able to free the stainless hardware easier than plain steel.

Thanx
George

 

[valentine]

Has anyone found a good source for stainless metric nuts & bolts?
I live in the rust belt and need some for some exhaust work and other exterior repairs. Its great knowing that down the road I will be able to free the stainless hardware easier than plain steel.

Thanx
George

They have them at my local true value hardware store. They want alot of $$ for them though.

 

[JerseyCruiser]

Thanx I'll check it out. I don't mind paying more for the good stuff its better than snapping off rusted studs.

 

[-Spike-]

SS hardware is not as strong as even grade 3 IIRC. Careful where you use it.

-Spike

 

[GXO]

www.fastenal.com

 

[D'Animal]

You might be better off using antiseize compound unless you are going to replace all of you nuts with stainless as well. The nuts will still rust. You can buy anodized bolts that have the anodized coating on them. They are avaliable in most all sizes.

Thanx I'll check it out. I don't mind paying more for the good stuff its better than snapping off rusted studs.

SS is not at all strong. You can snap a 5/16 bolt using a common ratchet and a wrench. If you are going to use them to hold your tail light in thats fine but do not use them any place that you need any strength.

My buddy mounted his swing away tire carrier to his TJ using stainless. He thought it looked cool. He mounted his 33" tire on it and it worked great until the entire assembly fell off when he went over a cattle crossing at the end of my driveway. Yes it was funny.

SS hardware is not as strong as even grade 3 IIRC. Careful where you use it.

-Spike

 

[instigator]

actually some stainless is stronger than the grades we get for automotive, but its really expensive. not to mention if you get stainless on stainless without a lube it will gall like the dickens and you wont be able to move the nut at all.

but for the most part, the stainless fasteners that are readily available are weak

 

[SR.GRINGO]

My business is nuts and bolts--industrial supply. Keep in mind general stainless is grade 2 and most of the stuff on our Cruisers is above grade 8. As mentioned above you can buy higher grade stainless but its expensive. I would stick with the grade eight or higher.

 

[Cruiser Jimmy]

My business is nuts and bolts--industrial supply. Keep in mind general stainless is grade 2 and most of the stuff on our Cruisers is above grade 8. As mentioned above you can buy higher grade stainless but its expensive. I would stick with the grade eight or higher.

Senior,
That's good info to know. A friend and I just finished a project for a 40. When tightening down the S'less to fit and finish, the bolts/nuts snapped off. We had to go down to ACE and get some grade 8.

 

[L8Shift]

I've gotten some small stuff from the larger Lowes..
I've also gotten some small stuff from boltdepot.com

My buddies in the marine industry use ARP fasteners... those make the grade...

 

[scottm]

You might be better off using antiseize compound

I used to use antiseize a lot, but I've switched to medium-strength Loctite. I figure it keeps out moisture and keeps fasteners tight, so things hold when they should and come apart when I need. I do a lot with aluminum, so I'm cautious with torque, and I feel less inclined to overtorque when the loctite is in there. There's a low-strength loctite, I'm keeping an eye out for a stick. Oh, and get it in stick form, not liquid, it's much easier to work with.

 

[mcwinery]

D'Animal (post #6)said a buddy using stainless bolts had his tire fall off. My question is where would you use or better maybe where would you not use stainless? I did use stainless on the shackles. Maybe I should replace those Also I am just starting to get pieces back to assemble the body. What about fenders attaching to body, bib to body etc...

George

 

[D'Animal]

McWinery

This should clear up my statements.

My business is nuts and bolts--industrial supply. Keep in mind general stainless is grade 2 and most of the stuff on our Cruisers is above grade 8. As mentioned above you can buy higher grade stainless but its expensive. I would stick with the grade eight or higher.

 

[wxm]

As spike pointed out, the SS fasteners have poor ductility (ability to deformation before farcture), therefore are not suitable for high stressed application such as frame, axle... The Fastenal has a very nice reference document covers this in great depth (http://www.fastenal.com/content/documents/FastenalTechnicalReferenceGuide.pdf).

As of the shopping source, I like McMaster-Carr (partly because it is only 20 minutes from me, I can order online, and pick it up before my project...)

 

[offroada]

Any decent hardware store will have em ...

 

[jasonmt]

As spike pointed out, the SS fasteners have poor ductility (ability to deformation before farcture), therefore are not suitable for high stressed application such as frame, axle.

Spike's post did not mention anything about ductility and I do not know where you got your information that SS has poor ductility, but it is wrong.

Austenitic stainless steels are highly ductile and a typical 18-8, 304, 316 stress-strain curve will typically not even show a well defined elastic to plastic transition. Brittle failure/fracture is generally not an issue...

The mechanical properties that make a typical 304 or 18-8 fastener you find in your local home improvement store unsuitable would be low tensile/yield strength, their tendency to gall and their poor resistance to Halides.

There are many grades of strain hardened austenitic stainless steels fasteners available with strengths between SAE Gr. 5 and Gr. 8 or ISO 8.8 and 10.9 but you are not going to find them at your local home improvement store nor want to pay for them.

 

[wxm]

Spike's post did not mention anything about ductility and I do not know where you got your information that SS has poor ductility, but it is wrong.

I am not an expert on this. For what I read, the ductility is function of
tensile strength / yield strength.

Assuming that's true, doesn't the lower tensile translate to poorer ductility?

I do agree with your point about the galling though.

 

[jasonmt]

I am not an expert on this. For what I read, the ductility is function of
tensile strength / yield strength.

Assuming that's true, doesn't the lower tensile translate to poorer ductility?

I do agree with your point about the galling though.

Tensile and yield strength by themselves give no indication of ductility, the ratio betwixt tensile and yield does and I am guessing that you are referring to this from Fastenal:

"A reasonable indication of a fastener’s ductility is the ratio of its specified minimum yield strength to the minimum tensile strength. The lower this ratio the more ductile the fastener will be."

This is basically making a generic statement saying the ratio between Min. tensile and Min. yield give a good indication of ductility is which is more or less correct, but you have:

tensile strength / yield strength.

which makes larger numbers indicate higher ductility whilst Fastenal has yield/tensile which makes smaller numbers indicate higher ductility.

Lets take a 1/2" 304SS fastener (ASTM A193 B8 Cl. 1) with a Min. Tensile of 75ksi and a Min. yield of 30ksi compared to a strain hardened 1/2" 304SS fastener (ASTM A193 B8 Cl. 2) with a Min. Tensile of 125ksi and a Min. yield of 100ksi:

ASTM A193 B8 Cl. 1: 30ksi/75ksi = .4

ASTM A193 B8 Cl. 2: 100ksi/125ksi = .8

And then we can throw in a SAE J429 Gr. 8 fastener with with a Min. Tensile of 130ksi and a Min. yield of 150ksi:

SAE J429 Gr. 8 : 130ksi/150ksi = .866

 

[Brentbba]

Discussion on all this brings up a question. Has anyone put together a suggested list of nuts, bolts w/sizes to carry as spares for our cruisers?

Cdan? Seems like everything from tools, spare parts (belts, etc) has been covered as well as camping gear. What about nuts and bolts. Only thing that comes to mind immediately is a spare bolt for the brake calipers.

 

[450 DUDE]

Mcmaster-Carr