Talon Inserts with steel Torklift Receivers
After many trips over the mountain passes to Utah, my tie downs started to look rather rusty. The most visible part is the insert. I was considering the whole sand, prep, prime, and paint path; and d...
Forum Discussion
The heat shrink will wear through about as quick as paint, where it touches.
best plant would be to clean up and repaint the receiver pieces. You could use an in frame spray nozzle to get the insides. And then maintain them periodically.
Some good rust proofing lube in the sockets like Fluid film, or grease/antiseize will help greatly as well. The shrink tube won’t help, really. If anything it’ll trap more moisture as soon as it begins wearing through which will basically be immediately.
I agree with your points Grit dog, but I also think the heat shrink will make a tighter fit and spread-out contact points that will help with wear and corrosion.
The heat shrink will wear through as quickly and in the same spots that the paint initially wears through.
difference with paint is it stays bonded to the metal where it hasn’t worn through, but moisture will creep under and stay under the remaining heat shrink, in short order.
Think of it this way, would you use heat shrink insulation in any other situation where you’re looking for abrasion resistance? Nope. And it certainly doesn’t have the compressive strength or durometer to provide that protection.
This situation isn’t unique although more unique to truck camper tie downs because most of them don’t get used in winter/road salt situations.
but there’s ALOT of trucks running around with stingers rusted into their trailer hitches.
The real solution is if you’re going to expose bare steel to a corrosive environment then you need to maintain it periodically.
Slobber some grease or whatever on it, plug it in and don’t expect it’s not going to get washed away or filled with dirt/sand.
You could potentially control the galvanic action if the 2 pieces were solidly connected and not subject to cyclic loading that includes slight movement between the parts. But that’ll never happen in this scenario.
Topical lubricants and periodic maintenance are the answer here. No magic easy button.
Theres a lot of over-thinking going on here.
