ibkevin

Anyone have some tricks they used to keep the wastegate fasteners tight through hundreds of thermal cycles? I think this is an antiseize vs. locktite on steel threads into carbon steel plate adapters dilema. Coastal salinity is murder on metal stuff.

Current configuration would be antisieze on SS fasteners with split washers.

TIA,

azmi951

drill and safety wire them. 20k miles and no problems yet.

streckfu's

locktite red.

ibkevin

That way I can antisieze the pee out of um.... But I don't see my self drilling 12 SS allen-head bolts for lock wire. I'll check the big fastener houses in the morning for these babys.

Thanks guys.

Jeeze, I'm a turbine mech and didn't even think of that

z3bra

You really can drill them yourself pretty easily if you buy the right tool for the job.

You can get a pretty nice Jig for drilling bolt heads for safety wire from these guys for $40. http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/safewire.htm (scroll down, it's the bottom item on the page) There's also a place called Tavia that also sells them but theirs is about the most expensive version of what appears to be the same jig at $70 bucks or so. The one you definitely want to get is the style that looks like the one on the Racer Parts Wholesale or Tavia webpage that will have the holes drilled through a block sideways and a drill guide bushing that tightens down against the head of the bolt like a set screw. Avoid the ones that don't have the set screw as they're for drilling the shank of the bolt instead of the head.

The jigs just use #50 cobalt bits. As long as you get 135 degree split point cobalt bits it's not a problem at all to drill fasteners.

Also, some motorcycle shops will carry the jigs for drilling through the corners of 6 point nuts which may also come in handy but they're usually around 20 bucks or so. Typically it's shops that sell Japanese bikes or more specifically crotch rockets.

On stainless it's actually not that bad to drill with the fixture provided you have a drill press and drill press vice to hold the jig while you drill. Set it to about 3000-4000 RPM since the bit is pretty small. On 8.8 bolts I can usually get about 15 or so holes per bit if I take it slow and use cutting oil prodigiously. My press only goes up to 3100 RPM so if I could get a little extra speed I think I could get more use per drill bit. With a new bit they go right through the bolts and after a few they'll start to require more pressure to drill the hole. The bits are generally about $1.50-$2.00 each. You can tell when they're getting worn and about to break when they start to make chirpy/squeaky noises while you're drilling. When they do you can either continue and hope you don't break it off in the head before it makes it out the bottom or replace it preemptively. If I'm almost through I'll usually take the gamble. (If it's the last bit I have on-hand I'll try to make the most of it of course)

I have no idea where you're going to easily find metric bolts pre-drilled but if you find somewhere let me know. The stainless while a bit tougher than mild steel is still somewhat soft compared to a hardened alloy steel bolt like a typical 12.9 allen head bolt. (Man those bastards eat drill bits though, don't expect to get more than about 6 holes all the way through per bit on 12.9 socket head cap screws). Also with allen head bolts, you're drilling through right at the bottom of the hole for the hex key so you're really only drilling about half the material of a regular hex head bolt.

If you have somewhere drill them for you it usually runs around $5 per bolt (or so I've heard at least). The jig is really handy to have though and has more than paid for itself over the years. If you like to have the safety wire option I highly recommend it. The only real downside is that it's designed for inch based bolts rather than metric, it doesn't work perfectly on some sizes, the 5/16 hole works perfectly on 8 mm bolts though which seem to be the ones I end up using the most anyway. For 6mm bolts I just drilled out the smallest hole (3/16 originally) to 6mm and it works great for that. I wish someone made a metric version of it, if I had access to machine equipment I'd make my own. I should just get metric 8, 10, and 12 mm bits and do the same one of these days I guess or use a letter or wire size that's close enough or something. Also, if you get the jig, it helps a lot for preventing bit breakage to put a nut and washer on the back of the bolt provided it sticks out the back of the jig far enough to do so.

Another trick is to file a flat on the side of the allen head bolt where you're going to drill beforehand on so they start cleaner without the tip of the bit trying to wander. Even in the drill guide bushing it does a little bit but a small flat helps tremendously to keep you from breaking bits.

That said, get a few extra bolts of the ones you plan to drill as occasionally you'll bust a bit in the head and not be able to get it out.

The best option though for the bolts is nickel anti-seize and safety wire. Alternately and slightly more affordably, use copper or silver based anti-seize, don't use Moly type anti-seize as it's not really up to the temps in exhaust parts, copper and silver are good to 1600 or 1800 degrees (I forget) and nickel to 2400 which is admittedly a little overkill, but hey, if it's ok for nuclear power plants, it must be ok for your car.

ehall

^^^^^^^^^This guys knowledge of fasteners alone, makes a Rennlist membership worth the price.

ibkevin

z3bra, Holy crap, that is outF'nstanding and ehall I couldn't agree with you more! I feel like hav'n a bit-snapp'n good time now.

For me, a flat spot is a must.

z3bra

The fastener thing with me BTW if anyone's wondering is that I was a helicopter mechanic in the Army which in turn made me somewhat **** retentive with regard to fasteners.

Other than that it's mostly just research on my part, nothing overly magical.

My one big fastener gripe though is where the hell is all the cool metric stuff? Sure ARP's great *IF* they make what you want/need, but considering most American cars have been using metric for what? 15 or 20 years now, the lack of nifty stuff in the way of metric fasteners is really baffling. What about all the people legitimately racing import cars or even newer American made cars, that's got to be a pretty substantial market that's essentially being ignored.

Now with aerospace stuff, I understand that they don't want to have to redo all the standards and recertify it all with older aviation assets out there along with the fact that it would be impossible to replace the existing stuff with metric from both a practical and cost perspective. (not to mention the "if it aint broke, don't fix it factor). With attrition I expect it'll be a good 50+ years if not more before they switch over if they ever do.

Granted, there are some NAS specs for metric fasteners but they're stupid expensive for the most part or you have to buy them in quantities well outside the amount someone using them for their car or even a small racing team is ever going to need.

I would love to be able to buy the turbo mounting bolts for our cars and a few other exhaust related fasteners in something like A286 or a nickel superalloy, and also with 12 point reduced diameter heads instead of the strip happy allen socket heads. Unfortunately, unless I had the money to buy about 10,000 of them or better yet buy a bolt/screw making machine (which would sadly cost much less than getting the fasteners custom made would cost), it just isn't going to happen.

Or how about getting custom studs rolled, of all fasteners, that's got to be the easiest from the perspective of setting up the production equipment, but it's completely cost prohibitive unless you're a manufacturer doing it in volume. A decent used stud rolling machine is roughly $10,000 or more.

So instead we have to make due with what's here already or readily available and I think it's pretty much crap.

So anyway, get that fixture and drill the hell out of some bolts in the meantime. I find one of the little 8" POS bench-top drill presses from Harbor Freight works pretty good for drilling them other than maybe not spinning as fast as would be ideal for drilling bolts with that small bit. If you catch them on sale they're about 40 bucks (vs. 80) and then you can just leave it set up for drilling bolts most of the time.

John Sims

Well it is, to some extent, comforting to hear that others are having problems keeping their Tials in place. I don't feel that it is just me, and may perhaps go some way to explaining why my replacement bolts and gaskets never turned up from SFR, they are obviously constantly out of stock providing replacements to you guys - Thanks Tim.

Any road up, the last efforts of my pet mechanic seem to have born fruit.:-
Bin the SFR gaskets, as they disintegrate and leave the fixings loose anyway, and either go without gaskets or use flat copper.
Replace the bolts with studs and nuts, that way the threads work against each other.
Perhaps not as good as lockwiring, but easier, and seems to have held up for longer than previous exercises.

schnellfahrer

I'm waiting for a Tial so I haven't seen what it looks like yet.
What are the differences between the stock and a Tial WG that makes the Tial more prone to work it self loose?

ibkevin

No pratical experience yet because mine goes in today, but with the adapter plates you have 4 additional bolts and twice as many joints.

z3bra-Thanks again for the input. The closest I can get to figure out how the rest of the world runs metric and we don't is that being the continental industrial leader, Canada and Mexico are still heavily based in SAE applications.
Maybe just adopting the metric system would solve this mess.

John-flat copper gaskets, excellent! I'll make a template while I have the new ones on the bench.

Thanks guys, enjoy the weekend.

azmi951

Just to let you know...when I drilled my bolts it took all of 15 minutes and a single bit. The bolts were allen head supplied by MySwiss (grade 10.? or 8.8?? I dont know.)

azmi951

I also found it easiest to safety wire them before puttong it in the car.
I was also reluctant to spend $50 on safety wire pliars so *cringe* harbor freight has a set for $15. they have worked well for as much as I use them.

schmedes1

http://www.eagleday.com/faas.html

z3bra

I "lost" my 2 pairs of safety wire pliers from work when I was in the Army. Either way you pay for em since they just deduct it out of your check after the next toolbox inventory. At the time I'd never been to Harbor Freight though or I'd have probably just gone that route. Considering how useful those pliers are with the wire cutter and the shape of the nose they really are handy for a whole bunch of stuff though so it was worth it.

The 8.8's are definitely easy to drill with a good bit.

Eagleday's not bad but if you don't absolutely need to have gold zinc plating for looks, they're somewhat overpriced. I just get my metric fasteners at an industrial hardware store here in Phoenix that happens to have a really good selection of metric fasteners. They're also considerably cheaper than the run of the mill Ace Hardware and considering the superior selection including a full line of stainless metric it's worth it to drive a little further.