Morris Minor Owners Club

Started dismantling and renovating a pair of rear springs yesterday.
Going to replace the bracket bolts and the centre bolt - wondering are these high tensile?
If i can find the right sizes will probably replace with stainless steel ones to look nice after the paint job

Don't use stainless - it's not high tensile! The standard bolts will be fine - or if really knackered, use Allen Cap bolts.

Hmm live and learn ! always thought stainless was HT ! Least they seem that way when they break !
BTW BMC they are in really decent condition now taken apart - think I'll try them as are given the improvement over whats on there - if they feel too soft once fitted then try beefing them up a bit, but dont doubt they will be a 100% improvement once on especialy as they will have bushes too which there are hardly any of currently

Don't use stainless - it's not high tensile!

????

Bolts are graded and the average mild steel bolt has a lower tensile strength than a standard stainless bolt.
High graded steel fasteners are, of course, higher grade material than standard fasteners, and the same applies to Stainless grades.

Allright - calm down i'l rephrase the Q
should i use mild or stainless to replace the ones i had to remove with teh grinder spanner

Some more bolt grade explanation here -
http://www.minormania.com/smf/index.php?topic=1169.0

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High tensile stainless bolts are very unusual - unless going to Aircraft grade? Allen Cap screws/bolts are high (and higher) tensile as standard.
In any case - mixing stainless and ferrous is not a great idea - an electrical 'couple' is set up when wet and the ferrous steel rots away!

I second that! in the construction industry we specify 'isolation washers wherever theres a steel/stainless steel interface. (And other mixed metal points as well) In fact it has got me thinking about a sacrificial anode plate like they have on ships to try to protect my chassis a bit, anybody know what they use?

A steel hull in fresh water would have a magnesium anode.
A steel hull in saltwater would have either an aluminium or a zinc anode.
A steel hull in brackish water would have an aluminium anode.
I'm not convinced that an anode would work on a chassis unless it was immersed in water; but if you did try it then arguably you would have to swap according to summer driving with fresh water spray and winter with salt on the roads.

See you learn usefull stuff all the time on this forum! I thought I,d hit on a winner there and was thinking if ways of marketing it when!!!
Seriously thanks for that but why do van gutters sacrifice themselves to save the rest of the box?

Isn't that down to the way they're fixed to the box being a water trap on the inside?
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Humm .. surely having the car set to a -ve earth will have the same effect as an anode?

In fact, isnt that one of the main reasons that they switched?

The -ve earth change was to stop the electrical contacts corroding - but does nothing for the rust!! You can add zinc anodes - but only likely to have very local effect. Hence modern cars are zinc galvanised = and really suffer very little corrosion unless horribly abused.
I ran a thread a few weeks ago on a -ve charge system from USA - the car was made a capacitor with isolated charged plates placed within the shell - and claims are made for anti-rust properties, but most seemed to be highly sceptical! Perhaps rightly so - I simply put it up for discussion.