Scottish Elises

So, fixings and fasteners... something I should probably know more about than I do.

So, my winter project is stripping down me trusty ol' motorcycle, and polishing said turd with rattle-cans of paint and some new nuts and bolts.

I could do with a bit of an idiots guide to identifying what a screw/clip/threaded part is made of. There are a few rust-marks around, but very few of the fixings seem to be magnetic, so I'm thinking some places used to have mild steel washers which are now missing or something. Shall I just replace everything with stainless, including the washers, fixings/clips etc? Any cases where stainless is a bad idea (e.g. when fixing into a lump of aluminium like the radiator ends?)

Obviously, where specified I'll use the OEM high-tensile bits, but this question is mostly about the bodywork and cosmetic stuff.

Secondly, a similar idiots guide to grease. What to use on different fixings to ensure they don't corrode or gall? I don't have any moly or lithium grease, but do have a tub of copperslip.. would that do or is it worth getting something specific to each combination of metal-metal application?

Or does it just not matter?

Ta.

Hendeg on here is yer man

You're right, I'll just dump a bag of all the old muck bits on Gary's desk, and say, "Those please!" Problem solved!

Seriously though, bits are easy to come by. Just need general good practice engineering advice.

I'm sure Gary would welcome it

I like the idea of an idiots guide to grease. To know the different applications of moly, high temp, lithium, silicon, multi-purpose so when the instructions say 'apply some grease', its not the usual flurry of googling tryign to work out which grease is required and more importantly whether the stuff you actually have on the shelf in teh garage is a good or bad idea.

(the one that you want, ooh ooh oooooohh..... cough sorry).


said googling gave this at the top of the list http://www.reliabilityweb.com/art04/und ... grease.pdf

Ferg wrote:I like the idea of an idiots guide to grease. To know the different applications of moly, high temp, lithium, silicon, multi-purpose so when the instructions say 'apply some grease', its not the usual flurry of googling tryign to work out which grease is required and more importantly whether the stuff you actually have on the shelf in teh garage is a good or bad idea.

(the one that you want, ooh ooh oooooohh..... cough sorry).


said googling gave this at the top of the list http://www.reliabilityweb.com/art04/und ... grease.pdf

What??? There are different types of grease?.... so you don't just find a MX5 driver and borrow some of his vaseline?

Shouldn't that be brylcreem?