Stainless steel

[bmuone 15]

I was checking on stainless steel nuts and bolts and found two different types. One is 316 and one is 18-8. What's the difference and which one is best for a rebuild job?

[tarcoleo 120]

18-8 is 18% Chromium, 8% Nickel. It is a typical composition of the 300 series of stainless steels.

Tom in RI

[dobeleo 7]

18-8 means the stainless steel has 18% chromium and 8% nichel. 316 stainless is made from this.

[bmuone 15]

Tks so I'm thinking the 18-8 is the ones to go with.

[dobeleo 7]

The most common 18-8 stainless steels are 303 and 316. The 316 stainless is the most corrosion resistant of all the 18-8 grades and shines up the best.

If the price isnt that different, id go with 316. The only rust you would ever see on them is tooling marks from the manufacturing.

Dont use these bolts to ground any wires to the frame. Stainless steel doesnt like to share its electrons.

working on a 1986 312-A here.

Dan

[Duff 206]

Dayton, if you're doing a complete frame-off resto or recon and replacing everything with stainless, you might want to look at McMaster-Carr as your supplier for SS nuts and bolts. I ordered them in bulk (25-100 units per size) and saved a boat load of money vs. buying them individually at any of our local hardware stores. The leftovers have given me a nice back stock for future repairs/replacements when (and this seems to happen to all of us!) I rebuild another machine.

Duff :D

[bmuone 15]

Tks Dan for narrowing that down to the 316. Takes the guess work out for me. And also on the heads-up about the grounding with stainless. Good idea on the bulk buy Duff. I have my 211-4 torn down for cleanup. Not too many nuts and bolts on it but I have a 417A in the background that might need a cleanup someday. Now all I need to do is figure out the sizes I need.

[specialwheelhorse 174]

316 is a good choice. I worked in an aircraft plant for ten years as a machinist and nearly everything we made was of 316.

[Coadster32 793]

I'll just add my $.02 to this. I rebuilt a snowmobile years ago, and made my own 300series stainless shafts, and used all 300series stainless hardware. You can't really torque properly stainless to stainless. I've had bolts back out on trail, just to loose my suspension. I switched to grade 5 and 8 bolts, and no problems. Good luck.

[Kelly 1,035]

I buy all my stainless at Fastenal in bulk, I picked up over 400 pieces for a restore last year and was only around $75 I have a nice selection of left overs.

[whfan74 2,073]

The Commando in my avatar has a bunch of chrome plated nuts and bolts. It looks nice but the steel is so hard it doesn't torque down very well. The three tractors we are putting back together now we are going stainless. We go to our local Fastenal and buy in bulk as well. We figure if we don't use it on the current project that we will be using it down the road.

[rmaynard 16,700]

If you don't have the budget to buy in bulk, try Bolt Depot, You can buy one piece at a time.

[squonk 44,922]

Another thing about stainless and torque, if you have a burr or some kind of imperfection in the threads and you use say a SS bolt and nut they can lock up before they are even tight and you will have to either break it or cut it to get it back off. :*****: