Is Stainless steel weak?

[Stacey Zabolotney]

I've been slowly replacing all the nuts/bolts to stainless on my R51/3 and then I was told by my local stainless steel nut/bolt dealer that stainless steel is quite weak and shouldn't be used on critcal areas of the motorbike. He said that regular steel has a strength rating of 5 and stainless is 2! If this is so, should I stop replacing all my old nuts/bolt to stainless? or just NOT use them in certain areas? (Rear plunger pinch bolts, cylinder head nuts etc.)

[Allan Atherton]

Here is an old post from Mark about stainless steel. It does not cover the issue of strength, so maybe Mark will cover that question. It may be true that stainless is weaker, but I doubt that it matters for bolts and nuts on our old bikes. Many firms offer the stainless fasterner kits, and I have never heard of a problem.
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What are VA and V2A in Catalog?

VA and V2A are old identification terms for stainless steel. The new terms are A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5, but in general, people are still familiar with the old terms. Basically, V2A = A2 and VA = A1.
A = Austenetic chrome nickel steel.
1 = automatic steel with sulphur content.
2 = cold steel with additional chrome and nickel alloys.
3 = cold steel with additional chrome/nickel alloys, stabilised with Ti, Nb and Ta
4 = cold steel with additional chrome/nickel alloys and molybdenum alloys
5 = cold steel with additional chrome/nickel alloys and molybdenum alloys, stabilised with Ti, Nb and Ta
A stainless steel screw would have a grade stamped on the head (according to ISO 3506) eg. ìA2-70î. This means that it is a Austenetic chrome nickel cold steel with additional chrome and nickel alloys, and has a tensile strength of 700 Nmm2
Stainless steel spring steels have the designations C1; C2; C3; C4, where
C = Martensistic chrome steel.