Stainless Steel material

[Peter Laidler]

Over the past few winters I have been slowly restoring parts of my S, replacing mild steel with stainless. For example, the rear hydro strut dowels and struts, the handbrake trunnion and handbrake sector axis pins to name but a few things.

Stainless steel plus anything else I need, such as bronze for bushes (Steering rack for example) has all come from: southweststeam.com. Tel 01566 781558 and ask for Russell Hawkins

They still stock the old imperial sizes too

Can't praise them enough, brilliant prices and a postal/delivery service second to none. Not related to them in any way

Peter Laidler, SKD 220G

[spoon.450]

Thanks Peter....that's fair enough, but why do you want to use stainless now.....are you intending running your car daily through the winter ? Personally I'd much rather see genuine parts....especially nuts and bolts, which are , and generally look horrible in stainless. My MK1 ( 850 JWA ) had lots of stainless parts / fasteners when I acquired it over 10 years ago but over the years I have ( and still am ) replacing with nicely patinad original items. Just my opinion, and would totally understand if we were still using our cars daily on salted roads through winter.

[Peter Laidler]

You are dead right of course Spoons. I don't use it during the salty winter roads either. I have to admit that I do replace nuts and bolts with stainless but do paint them where necessary etc to match originals if painted.

The problem is that where the steel parts have worn out (like the handbrake assemble trunnion or the hydro dowels and struts being rusty, then stainless is the way to go........, same as the handbrake cable sector axis pins. So newly machined bushes and pins. You know me.......,it's all about maintainability, reliability and durability! And of course, it's not just the 69 Cooper that needs looking after but the old Commando needs stainless TLC too. Soon I'll have to do the same on the RCSport5 too.

I know that I sound like an old softie but as an old time engineer with cutting fluid running through my veins and overalls that still stink of lathe coolant, I enjoy the machine work

[woodypup59]

I've heard it said that using stainless will push the corrosion somewhere else, stainless being more noble than mild steel.

What are your thoughts Peter ?

[Peter Laidler]

Sorry for the delay Woody. I haven't heard of that so spoke to my tame metallurgist, he with the Dolomite Sprint and he doesn't think the addition of stainless will cause inherent corrosion to emigrate purely based on the nature of the beast, stainless. But stainless steel can be many things - or as he called it, a coat of many colours! With the standard 303's and 304's there's no problems. Phew....., that's what I use.

[GraemeC]

Galvanic corrosion - if the stainless is in contact with mild steel or cast iron then that material will become sacrificial and corrode faster.
The same happens with steel and aluminium, although in that case the aluminium becomes sacrificial. That why steel fasteners seize and strip the threads out of alloy quite easily. It’s fine if the threads are ‘sealed’ but if air and water get in........