Coast Resorts Open Roads Forum: Avion truck campers

NightSailor wrote:

sleepy wrote:

67avion wrote:

Sleepy, I don't really understand the article. It says: When any two metals in this list are in contact, with
an electrolytic present, the one with the lower number is
corroded. The galvanic action increases as the metals
are farther apart in the Galvanic Series. It is not always
true that there is greater corrosion the further down the
scale one goes. In certain cases one metal immediately
following another may be very corrosive.

Maybe someone on this forum can explain this. I have replaced many screws and other parts with stainless steel in order to avoid galvanic action. Did I make a mistake?

If your boat is made out of aluminum and you accidently drop a handfull of copper pennies (coins) in contact with the aluminum floor of the boat, the the aluminm will corrode over time until there is a a hole in the boat. Copper is higher on the galvonic table than the aluminum.

Now the bad news... look at the galvanic table:

Find stainless steel...
you can see that it is much higher on the list than aluminum.

Yes, the galvanic action at the mating connections of the stainless/aluminum will corrode the aluminum of your beautiful aluminium camper.

The steel/aluminum corrosin will be fast around the salty oceans

It is true that copper and aluminum do not mix. The common technique to avoid this problem with wiring grounds is to use stainless steel connectors to isolate the copper from the aluminum. This is the same advice given to me by a profession aluminum tank builders for boats.

If stainless/aluminum junction for a ground wire is not a problem in a salt air and water environment, then I feel very safe using it in any application.

I would not be the least concerned about using stainless fastners on aluminum.

I have had problems on boats in salt water, the problem being the parts would seize up and be difficult to remove--no significant enlargement of the holes after 40 years in a salt water environment. It is more like they were welded together. Parts cannot be freed up without drilling them out. Makes me think rivets would be better in these applications.

I would also use Never Seize to ensure these parts can come apart later.

So the galvanic table is a bit out of sequence, I can tell you that from practical experience and a lifetime working on the water. With all my time on the water, I love stainless steel. I use it wherever I can.

I also favor the use of closed aluminum rivets over stainless.

In my case I have hundreds of rusted steel bolts holding in windows and a door on my camper, with the funny vintage hourglass screw heads. I hate the look of rusted machine screw heads everywhere.

I will be replacing these with stainless steel security bolts or else just using aluminum rivets