Jed Taylor

I have just been replacing the cam and balance belts on my 1990 Porsche 951. While I was in there I decided to replace all the water pump fasteners with titanium items. The studs I had to have specially made but the bolts are all readily available. One of the steel studs sheared flush with the block but I managed to remove it successfully using an old water pump as a jig to ensure I drilled square and central. One of the lower bolt holes had been previously drilled out and the thread felt loose so I installed a stainless steel time-sert.
Has anyone else carried out this titanium upgrade? It seems like the perfect solution to rusty corroded fasteners.
Jed UK

Titanium studs installed

gruhsy

Where did you get them?

951and944S

You should really use zinc coated bolts and studs in this application.

Titanium and stainless cause thread galling.

T

GPA951s

+1 ... and Corrosion is not an issue for owners that look after their car such as yourself...

Jed Taylor

I got my studs made by a specialist titanium engineer here in the UK (Ti64). He does a lot of one offs for motorcycles.
I have been using titanium on the car for many years in various areas. Most of the exhaust system including the wastegate has titanium fasteners. In over 10 years I haven't experienced any problems with galling and the fasteners still look like new bearing in mind wet UK winters and the amount of salt they put on the roads.
I have also noticed that where titanium is screwed directly into alloy castings there appears to be no corrosion unlike many of the original zinc coated fasteners which usually show signs of corrosion on the threads. I will continue to monitor the performance of the various titanium fasteners I have used but so far it is working for me and I get the benefit of the weight saving!
Jed

951and944S

I quick replied to that last night while watching the CSPAN replay of the SCOTUS Senate judiciary hearing.
I know stainless causes problems for sure but guessed that loss of surface protection on the Ti would be the same.

Not something you really remove every day (water pump) but if they do gall like I suspect, then God bless the person that'll have to remove it later...

T

gruhsy

If you use them I would use lots of anti seize. Little bit of useful info about threads here.

There was a post on the thread by "mighoser" seems useful about titanium anodizing. The Sandstrom 9A he mentions I use this product at work and it holds up pretty good out at Sea. I spray it on the items using a SATA HVLP4000 paint gun to achieve the required film thickness and let it air dry rather than bake...just a time issue when baking....lots of time to let stuff sit and dry.

https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=363923

I will add this though. The environments that hardware that I use at work will see is by far a much harsher environment than these cars will ever see....no titanium though..... and as long as we use either PRC, Zinc Chromate primer, specific loctites or lots of moly anti seize things come apart after being out at Sea for seven years. I prefer the Moly anti seize as I have never had something corrode in that time frame when using lots of Moly.