Fastener Corrosion

[Jovak01]

Hello everyone.

I have a 2016 with 10K miles. I don't drive all year long like some of you do. However it appears as though the last ride of my season in 2020 perhaps I drove thru some salty water laden roads here in sunny Western Massachusetts. Many of my fasteners that are low to the ground have started to corrode. The Zinc coating is turning white and its something that cannot be taken off with Scotchbright and or WD-40.

Just curious if anyone else has had this problem and what they did about it, if anything.
This puzzles me as it seemed to happen all of a sudden last fall. Typically Zinc is a good Rust Preventative for fasteners, but I can't help but believe Mother Yammy's crack sourcing teams have throttled back the quality of the fastener coatings in recent years.
I've had the bike 2 years now as I bought it used with 1,800 miles on it in August of 2019, and this definitely did not happen last year.

Thanks, Joe

[Canadian FJR]

A little dab of ACF-50 on them, great stuff.

https://fortnine.ca/en/acf-50-anti-corr ... nt-formula


Canadian FJR

[SLK50]

I’m curious as to which fasteners you’re having
an issue with. I thought all fasteners were SS?
I’m experiencing calcium chloride corrosion on
cast aluminum pieces such as the alternator
cover but not on any of the fasteners themselves.

[Jovak01]

Most of the fasteners that are below the lower half of the wheels are starting to corrode. The fasteners are not SS.
Even my dogbone connectors are corroded. The other part that is corroding is on the front universal joint cover connected to the tranny. It's starting to pit and turn white.

[FJRoss]

Everything is zinc plated and salt WILL cause it to corrode leaving a white residue and a pitted surface. Does bad stuff for aluminum as well. I have never found any way to restore a bright zinc plating. An aluminum surface may be polished but can't be fully restored if deeply pitted.

I try to avoid riding when there is salt (especially wet salt) on the roads. If I do, I wash the bike when I get back.

[ionbeam]

A friend of mine is the Road Agent for Sandown. He says that the state of NH uses brine that is a blend of 85% sodium chloride and 15% magnesium chloride in a water slurry. The magnesium chloride is worse for your car than the sodium. The kicker is that the brine often gets mixed with a binder such as beet juice or molasses (that may explain some of the 2D critters mashed onto the road). My friend uses molasses because it is the least expensive. The end result is a blend that is more corrosive than salt alone and it now sticks because of the binder and is harder to wash off. He says that simple spraying with water is not effective enough anymore.

Massachusetts uses this brine as their primary road treatment, but they have four other road treatment methods they could use.

[raYzerman]

Time to service your rear suspension arm anyway, likely the bearings need greasing...... I had to spend several hours cleaning my FJR after riding it in salty stuff that I couldn't avoid, including brake calipers and rear suspension arm.... uncoated aluminum will pit. AC-50 is indeed good stuff and what I used, not for brake parts obviously. Maybe you want to remove that u-joint cover and prep/paint it....

[Jovak01]

Thanks for all the advice.
I just bit the bullet and ordered all Stainless Steel replacement fasteners for most of the bike. Cost was $160 for everything. It was about the same cost compared to stripping and re-plating or buying all new fasteners from Yamaha which was not going to happen.

I've owned quite a few bikes and none had corrosion issues such as this one though. Fasteners especially are easy to protect. And if I took a new ones and did a comparative Salt Spray test on it I feel the Yammy's fasteners would show signs of corrosion much earlier than other bikes fasteners I've owned.

I may try the ACF-50 stuff, but lesson learned. Wash off the bike immediately after taking a December ride. Must have been when the weather got warm in late December here in Western Mass because I recall hitting 10K miles the last week of 2020.

[ionbeam]

D@mn, you should have gone to Pro Bolts/Tasty Nuts and ordered a FJR kit of hardware colored for your bike. Fancy aluminum, stainless steel and aircraft-grade titanium anodized hardware. Fred W from the other sandbox had a kit on his '05 when he bought it.

[Red]

D@mn, you should have gone to Pro Bolts/Tasty Nuts
and ordered a FJR kit of hardware colored for your bike. Fancy aluminum, stainless steel and aircraft-grade titanium anodized hardware. Fred W from the other sandbox had a kit on his '05 when he bought it.

Ionbeam,

Titanium does not work and play well with others. Galvanic Corrosion is a beast. You will not see where it is happening. The right flavor of anti-seize compound can help, but I would not want a titanium "anything" holding important parts together on my ride.

The further apart any two metals are located on the Galvanic Series list, the faster galvanic corrosion will happen. I believe titanium can be okay in racing applications, where such parts are replaced regularly and frequently, but not for everyday use. There are various Galvanic Series lists out there. Here is one (scroll down for the list).

http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Defini ... series.htm
.

[bigjohnsd]

Anti-seize is definitely the answer when putting any stainless steel into aluminum or into another stainless fastener. DAMHIK

[raYzerman]

Agree, stainless and titanium don't play well with aluminum. Now is also time for one to pull those 12mm fine thread main engine bolts out (or aftermarket ones if you have engine guards installed), and coat them with anti-seize.

In the auto biz, a few "borrowers" would take the aluminum caps off TPMS sensors cuz they looked cool, and put them on their valve stems.... when they went to add air to their tires, they found they couldn't get them off the brass....