What type of steel is used in making car strut piston rod?
 

A friend of mine has several old car struts and I noticed that they
all had nice looking round stock as the piston connecting rod. Its
really hard stuff, what type of steel could this be? and would it be
useful for linear bearing assy's or shaft material just to mess around
with?

I'd like to know this too. I have been getting the defect shocks out of
the scrap box at the warehouse (THose guys think I'm nuts) and
chopsawing the rods off. I've used it quite a bit, but I don't think it
turns very well. Could be operator probelm though.
I also use the hatch strut rods. All I've found have been .312 or
5/16, a convenient size for a lot of things.

- -
Rex Burkheimer
WM Automotive
Fort Worth TX

Modat22 wrote:
A friend of mine has several old car struts and I noticed that they
all had nice looking round stock as the piston connecting rod. Its
really hard stuff, what type of steel could this be? and would it be
useful for linear bearing assy's or shaft material just to mess around
with?

On Tue, 24 May 2005 09:02:21 -0500, Rex B wrote:

I'd like to know this too. I have been getting the defect shocks out of
the scrap box at the warehouse (THose guys think I'm nuts) and
chopsawing the rods off. I've used it quite a bit, but I don't think it
turns very well. Could be operator probelm though.
I also use the hatch strut rods. All I've found have been .312 or
5/16, a convenient size for a lot of things.

It would be nice if we could take the temper out of it easily, turn
it, then reharden the material. I normally would worry about it but I
have access to a large number of these things.

Modat22 wrote in
:


It would be nice if we could take the temper out of it easily, turn
it, then reharden the material. I normally would worry about it but I
have access to a large number of these things.


Just a guess here, but based on the application it is in, I would think
something along the lines of 4340 or the like.



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It's not that hard. Case hardened steel. It cuts on the bandsaw.
JR
Dweller in the cellar

Modat22 wrote:
A friend of mine has several old car struts and I noticed that they
all had nice looking round stock as the piston connecting rod. Its
really hard stuff, what type of steel could this be? and would it be
useful for linear bearing assy's or shaft material just to mess around
with?


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Can all steels be case hardened?

Jordan


JR North wrote:
It's not that hard. Case hardened steel. It cuts on the bandsaw.
JR
Dweller in the cellar

"Jordan" wrote in message
u...
Can all steels be case hardened?

No. Look up "carburizing," "case hardening," "nitriding," and
"carbonitriding" in your favorite metals info source. Machinery's Handbook
contains the basics, and a lot of libraries have an old copy on the shelves.
There's a lot to absorb on the subject.

In general, plain low-carbon steels are the easiest to case-harden, and
produce the best combinations of surface hardness and overall toughness.
There are some low-alloy steels that are made specifically to be
case-hardened. High-carbon and high-alloy steels don't carburize well, in
general, but they can be nitrided, which is an extremely thin but also
extremely hard layer of what amounts to a conversion coating. Carburizing
can be done much deeper into the steel. All carburizing means is that a lot
of carbon has been added to the surface and that surface layer then behaves
like high-carbon steel. Primarily, that means it can be quench-hardened.
Usually the hardness is higher than you would normally leave a comparable
piece of plain high-carbon steel, because you don't have to worry as much
about brittleness with a hardened case.

As for struts, I think the materials cover quite a range. The better ones
are high-strength alloy and hard-chrome plated. All "hard chrome" means is
that the layer of chrome is thick and isn't plated over a softer plating,
such as copper. The chrome itself is really no harder than thin, cosmetic
layers of chrome.

I don't know what they're making run-of-the-mill struts out of these days.
Sorry. Be wary of the "junkyard steels" sites on the Web. Many of them have
copied old Machinery's Handbook or SME listings from the 1940s and '50s.
Things have changed. But the better sites, maintained by knifemakers and
high-quality blacksmiths, are aware of this and give up-to-date information.
Ask a knifemaker. They really know their steels.

Good luck.

--
Ed Huntress