techno101

I heard somewhere the Stainless Steel bolts should not be used on Aluminum. I heard the the S.S. bolts will bond to the aluminum after a while. Please tell me that this is a myth! I have S.S. bolts all over my TPI.

DartByU

I've never had a problem, but It's good to use some kind of anti-seize anytime you screw into aluminum. Bronze screws and aluminum is bad news in boating in saltwater as it makes a good battery!!!

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Stainless & aluminum make a wonderful battery, too. The aluminum will INEVITABLY corrode because it will be the anode (the postive terminal of the "battery"), and the stainless will be the cathode (the negative side). The positive side corrodes, just like your car battery terminals.

That's why, on boats, there's ALWAYS sacrificial anodes somewhere; on a Mercury outdrive for example, there's 2 lumps of zinc on a couple of the bolts, and the trim "rudder" is also zinc.

The "usual" cure for this (somewhat accidental, but effective...) has typically been those crappy chrome water outlets that always leak. The reason they leak, is because they're cast from a zinc alloy, which acts as the sacrificial anode, and it erodes; and sooner or later, they eat through around the base. But in so doing, they protect the aluminum from electrolysis.

The ideal solution would be to find someplace inside your cooling system, inside the engine specifically, where you could bolt a chunk of zinc to a well-grounded casting to form a battery where both the stainless and the aluminum would be cathodes and would therefore not coorode.

Sonix

iTrader: (1)

Usually when you use SS fasteners, into AL or anything, you use anti-seize, or anti-galling. Anti seize is like the copper antiseize stuff (at least what i'm talking about here), and anti-galling is a white paste, very similar to thread sealant.
At my last job, we used all SS fasteners, bolting pieces of AL together. We had to use anti-galling on every single fastener, so we could get it apart again later if needed.

techno101

I used a fare amount of wheel bearing grease on all the bolts going into aluminum, do yall think this will work?

84z28350

I doubt it, over time i think the grease would dry up and you would still end up with a stuck bolt.