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Coppaslip is extremely hard to find in Taiwan. I did locate what I'm told may be the only tin "in the wild" in the entire country, but since it contains approximately 500,000 years supply, I didn't buy it.
I have a weakness for half-assed improvisations anyway.
In the past these have included using sunflower oil on the wheel studs (and as a general external assembly lubricant).
VERY BAD IDEA. Its pleasant to use, and initially a good lubricant, but once it sets, certainly on a wheel stud, its far too strong an adhesive. I guarantee if you use it you will never have a problem with fastners coming loose again.
Unless you want them to. THEN you'll have a problem.
These days I use a general purpose grease on wheel studs and, if I remember, give the threads a rub with an old tyre weight.
I the past I think I've used a graphite pencil on them, but since galvanic corrosion is a (theoretical, at least) possibility with graphite, I've stopped doing that.
For the hub surfaces, I did my sunflower oil/beercan-in-a-drill-chuck thing on the hub, and then a cats-cradle of PTFE plumbers tape around the studs, and a layer of aluminium foil on the wheel, to hopefully reduce the chance of it sticking again.
Bit over the top, but I'd had some trouble getting that one off. Later ones I just did the aluminium foil.
You could probably use polythene/polypropylene string/film, but it'd melt from braking heat, and might cause problems with adhesion/disk contamination, so I havn't.
[url=www.flickr.com/photos/31043052@N06/6900635812/][img]farm8.staticflickr.com/7241/6900635812_9260cf5e28....g[/img][/url]
[url=www.flickr.com/photos/31043052@N06/6900635812/]IMG_0108[/url] by [url=www.flickr.com/people/31043052@N06/]ed_lithgow[/url], on Flickr
When I was in Australia I bought a couple of wee sachets of Bendix Ceramlube (which I think is boron-based) but thats too expensive to use on anything but brakes.
Edited by edlithgow on 01/04/2014 at 01:38
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You can't get CoppaSlip in Taiwan?? Good heavens above! Most things on e-Bay here come from Taiwan, or China or Hong-Kong! I'm quite gob-smacked. I've got to agree with you that ceramic grease is so expensive that you'd only want to use it on brakes, but I would have thought that copper, aluminium and 'white' grease was available everywhere.
"Rub with an old tyre weight". There's a good idea. I hadn't thought of that one. A bit of lead. Good idea, son! (Max Bygraves' catch-phrase, 1950s, you probably won't remember it).
Another good grease to use is 'waterproof grease' for boat-trailer hubs. We can get it here in the North-West from Indispension in Bolton. When I was driving Minis many years ago, and remember that the Mini reqired regular application of the grease gun, my grease gun was always loaded with Idispension's waterproof grease and that was (and still is) the most nasty, smelly grease imaginable, but it didn't emulsify like regular grease when used on the Mini. It was a 'proper' grease.
I wonder how much it would cost to post a can of Coppaslip to Taiwan?
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Yeh, I thought at first it was just me not knowing where to look, and being effectively deaf, dumb and illiterate, but apparently not.
Heres some quotes from a local British mechanic who serves a "niche market" helping people (I imagine mostly, but not exclusively, expatriates) survive in the shark-pool of the Taiwan motor trade.
"You will need to ask around for ???
I guarantee almost nowhere is professional enough to supply this. It took me quite some time to find an industrial supplier for our workshop and as far as I know we are the only workshop which uses it on all brake strips and services to properly keep them lubricated and relatively free from corrosion. We also, always add it to drum-wheel mating surfaces to help prevent the situation you have suffered."
We order ours from an oil supplier. They order it especially for us from their foreign supplier. According to our Agip Rep., we are the only purchaser of this product he knows of.
I have seen one other specialist garage use very small tubes of this, which sometimes come with certain brake pad brands, but that's all.
It's frustrating I know, as brake grease is as common as toothpaste back in the U.K. Taiwan just isn't that professional I'm afraid.
The same goes for LM grease which we use for C.V. joints. It's not simple to order as almost every garage and supplier in Taiwan will insist that HM grease does exactly the same job. Which obviously it doesn't.
Honestly, you have to have a lot of patience when sourcing some of the most basic stuff in Taiwan. So good luck!"
And here's THE TAIWAN TIN I found. Note the rust on the rim.
www.flickr.com/photos/31043052@N06/7701316450/in/p.../
"Well done! You've found possibly the only shelved tin in Taiwan I reckon!"
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(Mandarin characters show as ???, which is how I think of them anyway)
Edited by edlithgow on 03/04/2014 at 12:24
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I use "Copper Grease Assembly Compound" which is made by Comma- not Copaslip.
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Halfords do their own,Loctite and 3 in 1 also supply.And most are cheaper than Copaslip.
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Bit of a topic-shift, though still related, and its perhaps not worth a new thread.
If my car has been standing idle for a couple of weeks (which happens a lot) I turn it over with the plugs out for a bit, to reduce startup wear.
However, I've lost my spark plug socket. I should be able to replace it when I next get to Kaoshiung, (city about 50k away) but meantime the best I could find locally was a rather nasty universal jointed socket on a T-handle, for 65NT (about 1.25). This wouldn't budge the plugs until I put a foot-long steel tube on one end of the T, suggesting I've perhaps been over-tightening the plugs with my one-finger-on-the-breaker-bar technique. Perhaps I should use a torque wrench, which I've never bothered with before.
Since I take my plugs out a lot more often than most people, increasing the risk of thread damage, this further suggests I perhaps should be using some sort of anti-seize treatment on the plugs. I've never bothered with this before either, and Taiwan is a bad place to start, since I can't usually buy anything here .
Half-assed improvisations I've considered include PTFE plumbers tape, graphite pencil, rubbing with an old tyre weight, perhaps in combination with cheapo chassis grease (which I think is clay based, and may bake solid).
The PTFE is discussed on the web with the usual mass of unsupported opinion-mongering, but the specific objections are it'll melt instantly (doesn't seem to match PTFE's 300C+ temperature range), will insulate the plugs electrically (doubt coverage will be that complete, plus it can still earth through the washer, and I could measure the resistance to check) and thermally (more plausible, and difficult to measure). I've also read somewhere that burnt flourocarbons (I think fluorinated rubbers) can release fluoric acid, which would be truly scary even if its rather unlikely in this case.
I havn't seen graphite pencil dicussed. It should work but involves the (theoretical at least) possibility of galvanic corrosion of the alloy.
So I'm favoring rubbing with an old tyre weight, which I havm't seen discussed either. This'll transfer some lead (or lead-antimony) into the thread grooves. I suppose some of it might get into the engine but I can't see it doing much harm. Antimony is rather high in the electrochemical series though, so galvanic corrosion may be a (theoretical at least) possibility here as well.
Edited by edlithgow on 08/06/2014 at 10:01
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Edlithgow, be thankful you don't own a Subaru, took me around 3 hours or more to change all 6 plugs on my Legacy, 2 weeks for the scars and scrapes to heal on my hands and wrists, and countless years for my neighbours to recover from their fastrack course in fluent cursing.
One saving grace is that i shouldn't, hopefully, need to touch them for 4 years.
The only thing i've ever done to plug threads is to run a cut out thread chaser down the hole thread, when removing the old ones was tight and suggested the thread was gungy, but that was back in the days of cast iron heads, oh and wire brush the plugs if they were going back in, i could even tell you where the thread chaser is now and perish the thought of trying to get that in and out of the Subie plug recess.
Edited by gordonbennet on 08/06/2014 at 10:18
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Subaru's have boxer engines, I believe?
That'd lower my enthusiasm for plug removal quite a lot, but access is easy on the Skywing, and there are only 3 plugs.
That said its probably not worth worrying about. Perhaps I've been spending too long on US-based auto sites, where it seems to be common practice to use anti-seize on plug threads.
I used to wire-brush plugs, but I believe its no longer fashionable, and I have a vague impression plugs seem to stay cleaner these days, perhaps because of lead-free petrol.
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ngksparkplugs.com/pdf/TB-0630111antisieze.pdf
Directly relevant, since I'm using NGK plugs and they look shiny, so I can probably forget about improvising anti-seize and obsess about something else equally unimportant.
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Edlithgow, you're in good company here obsessing about certain things.
My own OCD's are.
Meticulously maintained brakes, serviced thoroughly every year by me, discs (non friction areas obviously) and calipers given a coat of black (my choice) paint, brake pipes coated in grease.
Rest of car maintained properly, i could no more leave engine oil in for 20k miles than fly to the moon, transmission oils must be changed at common sense intervals, i take little notice of the makers intervals now which are getting to be a joke in UK supplied vehicles...note some proper Japanese makes, renowned for standing by their product for many years, have not gone down this road, wonder why.
Car underside, especially subframes and suspensions, plus cavities treated using a decent quality rustproofing wax...we keep our cars for years so this sort of care is vital given the UK climate and highways authorities' salt fetish.
Tyres, oh Lord i might need help here, 4mm i want them gone, they do not get below 3mm anywhere on the tread, rotated regularly, not necessarily so called premium brands, but i normally buy highly rated European made tyres online at very good prices, yes and second set on wheels of proper winter rated rubber.
Wheels kept clean, i cannot abide brake dust...also keep my lorry wheels clean, and polished, it annoys when i return to shift and find my front wheels (and trailer wheels, mine's on discs) particularly covered in thick brake dust, i seldom use the brakes where many modern jockeys drive on them constantly...my vehicle is fitted with a perfectly adequate engine brake.
Wiper blades..oh dear, i can't stand hearing them judder, so very often flick them over to park them on the opposite lean, also keep windows and mirrors spotlessly clean.
On the subject of tyres/brakes its one of my main criteria when i buy a car, if its shod on manky unheard of ditchfinder rubbish, with scabby scored discs and salt encrusted calipers visible through kerbed and corroded wheels i walk away, if the most important parts of a car are neglected and maintenance non existant or as cheap as can be, what hope the reall expensive unseen stuff.
I could go on here for pages, and i haven't even started on lorry OCD's, prattled on enough anyway.
cheers
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