Radius arm shims sealant?

[Johno]

Evening all,

What's the sealant smothered around the shims of a radius arm after fitting? Anyone?

Johno

[clive]

Nothing listed,I use spray wax protection between the shims, and a hard dinitrol wax over them after. Bike chain lube is very good, sticks well.

[Gully]

I put copper slip on the shims and them coated with Dynax 50 wax when in situ.

Gully

[Johno]

I'm thinking the original may have been butyl.

[Mathew]

I used copper slip between and waxoil over, purely as anti corrosion.  Originally nothing was used as standard and they rusted together as it was pretty much fit and forget.

[Johno]

I seem to remember digging something like button out from the spot in disasembly. It wouldn't have been renovated before. Perhaps it was just in the slot. They might just get schutzed.

[Johno]

Butyl  not button

[chrishawley]

The original stuff would have been a butyl, non-setting, sealant putty. OE may have been Glasticon or Sealistik; these being variations similar to the once ubiquitous DumDum.

Alas DumDum is no more. Banned a few years ago because of chemical nasties. The best substitute I've found is Arbomast windscreen sealant (readily available). This is runnier than DumDum but if some is sqeezed out of the tube (say the size of a golf ball) and left to air dry for a couple of days it will firm up without ever hardening completely.

On the radius arm attachments the point of a non-setting butyl sealant is to resist water leaking into the rear footwells by capillary attraction behind the bracket and along the bolts. Applicable in a great many other situations where water creep is a possibility.