Thread: Basic Metalurgy
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Old 04-30-2010, 03:39 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hanleyclifford View Post
It is a mistake to upgrade nuts and bolts on your engine. The danger you alluded to is the galvanic cell. The engine is cast iron, primarily and the bolts and nuts are some grade of carbon steel. Remember, it is the basic castings that are most valuable and should not be endangered by the use of "noble" fasteners. You can probably find a galvanic series somewhere on the internet and note where cast iron lies in the order of things, as it were.
The engine block and castings are indeed cast - but they are not cast iron. Universal's own adverstising states the block is a "high nickel-chromium casting" in order to forestall corrosion in a marine environment.

I won't go so far as to say the block and associated castings are "stainless steel", but they are certainly not the kind of pot steel one would find in a automobile engine.

I would say if you want to improve your fasteners with S/S and are worried about galvanic corrosion then use blue loctite (which can be removed with hand tools) which will form a barrier between the threads or body of the fastener and surrounding engine components.
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