Just to add another reason to never substitute an American/SAE thread tap/die (or nut/bolt or anything else for that matter) for a metric:

Besides all the other differences, the actual shape of the threads are different in that metric threads have a slight flat surface in the valley and on top of the peaks. American/SAE threads do not have the flat, and actually have a sharp pointed thread. Having that sharp thread can sometimes make the bolt feel like it is going to hold in the other type of threads; until it is subjected to some force; then it strips the threads out on its way out of the hole. Usually ruining the bolt and/or hole on the way out.

Moral of the story: Your "NAPA" guy IS a TOOL, but he doesn't know beans about them.  

I was taught, correctly or not, that torque figures were for perfect oiled threads and that never seize compounds were close enough to oil to substitute.  I'd love that confirmed!  

Doesn't take much.  Machines drowning in never seize are less fun.  

Like most of my equipment, I figure my bike will come apart and go back together beautifully by the time I get rid of it!!!

OK.  I'll add something.

At one bizarre point in my life I had a job disassembling cars and blueprinting them.  Someone would have a favorite car and want to keep it.  Some I took down to the bare body, had repainted, blueprinted the engine, best brake lines, and so on. First class.  This was really less work than you'd think with air tools and so on.  I'd use a dip tank for cleaning, neutralize & dry everything.  New fastners where there was corrosion.  

Everything went back with a torque wrench and neverseize.

Years later, one of these cars came up for sale with only 150,000 miles after the rebuild.  No idea how many miles on the basic carcass - probably 400,000 miles.  I'd had the interior custom done at the rebuild time, and covers went on.

You could still eat off the engine, barely tell it was idling by looking.  

And every single thing I had to work on came apart absolutely effortlessly.  Nothing was every stuck on that car.  EZ working.

Of course, my ex eventually splattered it.

Neverseize works. And works.  And works.

voldigicam wrote on 07/12/09 at 02:56:12:



FWIW....

I've got my Savage (see signature) torn apart right now and recently spent way too much time online researching the torque reduction I should be using for the particular type of anti-seize I'm using, Permatex Anti-Seize.

As you can imagine, there are many variables, methodologies, and engineering "fudge factors" involved. I even got sucked into a long, involved discussion (with some awesome links to source data, BTW) on a BMW motorcycle forum (those guys take anality to a level never approached on this board).

Bottom line, for my flavor of anti-seize (it makes a difference, BTW), if the spec calls for dry threads, I use 80% of the torque spec. If there is a range of dry-thread torques specified in the spec, I take the the minimum torque specified or 80% of the maximum torque specified, whichever is lowest.