Sacrificial metal

With all the discussion of frame rust, I'm curious if anyone has bolted a block of zinc as a sacrificial metal to the frame looking to mitigate frame rust. Just a thought...

 

In theory it would work, in practice... not very efficiently over the entire frame. Sacrificial anodes will work if both materials are immersed in the same electrolyte media (i.e salt water) where current can flow between the cathode (frame) to the anode (Zinc) and produce an appropriate current density to protect the steel. Since air is a poor electrolyte and any brine from road travel will be localized to individual parts of the frame well away from the anode, which wont complete the galvanic couple, the anode will only protect the frame well in the immediate local area. I'm Canadian, dont hold that against me, and work in corrosion and metallurgy R&D and failure analysis for the marine industry. There are or were automotive impressed current cathodic protection systems available commercially, a few years ago we ran a trial of these systems on snow plow/salting trucks and the systems worked well enough to justify the costs. However the best defence against corrosion is an appropriate, correctly applied, and well maintained coating system.

 

Holy first post... This blew my mind. Also a fun read. Thanks for that.