Would you replace rusty screws

[Matt A]

I replaced all the exterior lighting and the skylight on my Flair. All the old rusty galvanized screws went in the trash and new stainless fasteners went in.

[TLGPE]

I would hesitate to mess with them. A good approach would be to apply a rust converter primer to stop the rust, then paint your choice of color.

If you do replace them, just a bit of advice from the US Navy's Seal Beach Research Station would be to coat all screw threads (even stainless) with a sealant like Dicor or even just plain silicone sealant before installing. This prevents moisture from entering between the parts and makes removing them easy, even years later.

I started doing this on my sailboats long ago, and it still works. It also helps to prevent vibration from loosening things.

Tom