Long time lurker first time poster. This ones for the amature metallurgist in the house.

Just bought the standard steel license backing bracket as well as the stainless license frame from Boston Volvo. Each comes with acorn nuts. I assume the bracket studs are steel as are the acorn nuts. The license frame and acorns are some kind of cheap stainless steel.

When I brought up recommendations for anti-seize, the dealer mentioned mixed metals and recommended I use the stainless nuts from the cover kit on the standard steel from the bracket studs. Being me, I had my doubts.

Either way, I'll apply a Loctite aluminum anti-seize or similar. The way I see it, you've got about four different metals, a couple of gasses, and a few other solids, all having it in for each other, and dooming us to fail at license removal time. So help me sort it out!

Question: how will removal of stainless steel acorn nuts with standard anti-seize be after years of snow and salt vis-a-vis the run-of-the-mill steel acorn nuts?

Thanks!

 

It'll be great. Stainless steel is of course not going to rust, so that is a boon. The problem with stainless-on-stainless bolting is galling, which has nothing to do with corrosion. As you are putting stainless on steel, you will not have this problem. Just don't overtighten it. In my experience, I don't find carbon steels to rust significantly more due to contact with stainless in ordinary weather. I can't tell that the galvanic coupling has any effect on it at all. So the carbon steel would be rusting at the usual rate, and the anti-seize should prevent that anyway.


Even with steel acorn nuts and anti-seize, it would be fine. Acorn nuts provide quite a bit of protection from the weather.

 

Thanks for the thorough and knowledgable answer firebirdparts. In light of your advice, I'd say my days of adapting nylon fasteners into rust-prone areas like license plates and marine environments are probably numbered. Feels, well, kind of classy!