I have some aftermarket lights on my truck that haven’t survived the cold, water and salt of driving.
I’m getting replacements, but I hate to just throw these out. How can I engineer a way to mount and use these lights?
Also,what can I do, to prevent my new lights from winding up like the old ones?
Engineer new mounting ?
Cable tie or hose clamp the ends together.
Or some other way to hold the ends together, and the bolt holds it all tight.
Eg steel square tube , like chair leg tubing.
You can put extra grippy washers in to assist the bolt holding it tight.
Or there are screw holes on the back surface of the light. These could be used…
The broken mount is due to the connection between aluminium and steel corroding fast… also aluminium does crack over time anyway… It seems the corrosion has expanded and pressured the holder until it broke open.
If you use stainless steel to touch to the aluminium … less problem.
The @1 preservative for engineered Al is Alodine.
It is a “Prep with acid and then soak for hours” treatment. There are two formulations - one produces a golden surface color, the other is transparent.
That green stuff on the insides of some aircraft is zinc chromate, a paint.
It is/was available in 12 oz spray cans.
The only brick and mortar place I saw alodine and its acid bath was a very specialized car paint shop - used to be that only custom cars used aluminum, it is now quite common in mass market cars.
For those thinking “How did Al manage to corrode?” - quite easily in the high-strength alloys. Your cookware and house parts are made from low-strength, but who cares? - it can never corrode.
3003 (commercially pure Al) and the 6061 alloys will not corrode.
Aircraft use 2024-T3 - which is why they get the zinc chromate.
Just recerted on hazmat awareness at the big airplane company. A couple of warnings if you go the alodine route. It must be kept away from solvents and many other types of chemicals. Just think spontaneous combustion. It can also do nasty things to your skin. Use nitrile gloves, not latex. The one nice thing about it, water neutralizes alodine.
Is there going to be problem with electrolytic corrosion with two different metals touching each other, even if I use Stainless? Wonder if I can get aluminum bolts, or if I can coat the bolt and mounting sleeve with heavy grease, I wonder it that will stop or slow the problem
I know you can get Al sleeves and brass bolts (marine supply).
There just may now be a supply for AL hardware due to weight concerns by the auto industry.
With the Al sleeve, any electrolytic corrosion will occur to the sleeve - get a couple of extras and consider them “sacrificial” - ships have strips/rods which are more energetic than their steel hulls.
The rods get replaced regularly.
Any coating that can be wiped on will soon be penetrated by friction.
An RV shop can probably give you parts and/or recommendations for bolting stuff to different metals - people want to bolt all kinds of stuff on every part of an RV.