Preventing Bolts from Seizing

[blueg33]

Quick question, hope this is the right place.

The bolts for the seat runners on the Alpine go through the floor to the underside of the car with the nut on the underside. As a result they get covered in crud and seize quickly.

My car has new shiny bolts, I will use the car over the winter but will need to remove the bolts in the spring so that I can take the seats out to replace the carpets.

What is the best way to prevent them seizing (they are nylock nuts). I thought just cover the nut and protruding thread in grease.

Cheers

[Mr Roper]

Copper grease on the bolt thread.

[S3_Graham]

blueg33 said:

Quick question, hope this is the right place.

The bolts for the seat runners on the Alpine go through the floor to the underside of the car with the nut on the underside. As a result they get covered in crud and seize quickly.

My car has new shiny bolts, I will use the car over the winter but will need to remove the bolts in the spring so that I can take the seats out to replace the carpets.

What is the best way to prevent them seizing (they are nylock nuts). I thought just cover the nut and protruding thread in grease.

Cheers

Copper grease? Or like you say cake it in grease. You could seal it up with underseal or suchlike but imagine that will be a pita.

[steveo3002]

copper slip on the threads before you fit the nut , and then if theyre really exposed paint or underseal the threads that stick out beyond the nut

chances are stainless ones are only a couple quid on ebay

[blueg33]

Thanks folks. As I thought. Annoyingly the bolds are already fited (not by me) so I will have to undo them to put copper grease on the thread. I am 100% certain they are not stainless. When I re-do it in the sprong I will use stainless.

Off to modify a 13mm socket to hold the bolts whilst I slacken the nuts to apply copper grease. (Standard socket doesnt fit in the runners!)

[SMGB]

You need to be careful with stainless steel as it is often not as strong as the OE bolt specified and a seat runner letting go at less than the design load could ruin your whole day. I only use them for non stressed applications like trim.
Can you get one of those long nosed sockets into the hard to reach bolt head?
As for protecting them, yes copper grease on the threads then paint over the whole thing wirth hammerite and then paint Dinitrol over that.
http://www.dinitrol.co.uk/
See the classic car panel, use the wax for this application. This stuff is about 4x the price of Waxoyl, and its worth every penny.

[steveo3002]

tbh they will come undone after one winter...just leave em or maybe cake the outside with grease to keep the water out

[ShayneJ]

SMGB said:

You need to be careful with stainless steel as it is often not as strong as the OE bolt specified and a seat runner letting go at less than the design load could ruin your whole day. I only use them for non stressed applications like trim.
Can you get one of those long nosed sockets into the hard to reach bolt head?
As for protecting them, yes copper grease on the threads then paint over the whole thing wirth hammerite and then paint Dinitrol over that.
http://www.dinitrol.co.uk/
See the classic car panel, use the wax for this application. This stuff is about 4x the price of Waxoyl, and its worth every penny.

This I would not use stainless on stressed mounting points like seats unless
you know the load rating of the bolt is well above the load it will see in use
and echoing whip em out give then a smear of copper slip reassemble and
paint then coat with Waxoil or Dinitrol .

[47p2]

Nyloc nuts should only be used once

[thinfourth2]

Denso tape

Wrap the nuts in denso tape that they will be protected for years

fking horrible stuff but it works perfectly

[Ozzie Osmond]

steveo3002 said:

chances are stainless ones are only a couple quid on ebay

That's what I'd do. Permanent solution.

[PhillipM]

And you'll still need to smear them with anti-sieze otherwise they might gall the next time you take them out anyway.