Would it be safe to use Stainless 18-8 bolts for the clevises that mount the radius rods to the batwings? Or stick with grade 5. I really don't want chrome . It's too much up keep for al old guy.
In my opinion Stainless is kind of strong while holding something together straight on, but it's shear strength is a lot less. I would only use grade 8 bolts on any suspension parts. Don
The tensile strength of standard unhardened 18-8 stainless is about equal to grade 2 bolts. ARP and some other companies sell some hardened stainless bolts that are stronger than grade 5 though for special purposes. For a clevis, try to find bolts that have an unthreaded shank in the part where the clevis meets the bat wing. An unthreaded shank has a lot more shear strength than the threaded part does. In a clevis setup, the bolt acts as a pin, so what really matters is the strength of the part that goes through the bat wing. Maybe another option if you wanted to dress it up would be to use a good grade 8 stud that's threaded at both ends and unthreaded in the middle, and use stainless steel acorn nuts on both ends -- but use Lock-***e or the types of acorn nuts that have nylon inserts in them to lock them. It would be bad to have that bolt fall out. Just make sure there are no threads too close to the batwing area, because the threads will just be a weak area where it would more likely shear off.
Unthreaded shank would be a shoulder bolt.. Used a lot in clevises and stainless bat wings for 4 bars.. Dave
Im like everyone one else, I like to see grade 8 bolts on suspension parts, I got stainless upper and lower control arms from fatmans, and all bolts were stainless alloys. I learned real quick to use anti-sieze on stainless because it will gald up in a heartbeat. Check this website out, they advertise stainless fasterners with more tensile strength than grade 8 fasterners. Hope this helps. http://www.totallystainless.com/TS-HS.pdf
ARP has stainless bolts rated higher strength-wise than grade 8's. Looking at my ARP header bolts, they should polish up ok although they looked pretty good just out of the bag. If you have an aircraft surplus outfit nearby you can find long shank short thread bolts there. Do a little research on how to tell the aircraft grades apart. May be better to simply order the same bolts from Spruce Aircraft. Or . . . someplace like Speedway or other aftermarket clevis' suppliers because they'll have bolts to be used in suspension systems. Speedways racing catalog may have what you want.
We get stuff from TotallyStainless all the time and Doc is easy to talk to. I'm sure they have some stainless hardware that you could use strong enough for this application.
Shoulder bolts (also called stepper bolts) have an unthreaded shank, but the threaded part is often smaller diameter. Like a 3/8" shank with a 1/4" or 5/16" threaded end. Shoulder bolts are really nice quality bolts though. I use them for the pivot pin on things like my brake pedal ***embly and my accelerator pedal ***embly. The shouldered part is machined or ground to a very accurate diameter that's a perfect fit for a sintered bronze bearing. McMaster-Carr has a nice selection of shoulder bolts. Sometimes if you want a bolt with a certain length of unthreaded shank, you can buy a longer bolt that has the unthreaded part as long as you want it, then cut off the excess threads. Once grade 5 or grade 8 bolts get over an inch or so in length, they usually are only partially threaded.
Butch, Gardner-Wescott is in Northville. They carry a full line of stainless hardware, and you can go there and pick them up! Dan
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