Novel about a comet approaching earth and melting metal

Question

I've been trying to track down the first novel that got me interested in sci-fi. It could not of been written any later than the 50s or 60s. It was about a comet that as it approached earth everything that was of metal started melting together. So first the cars stopped working and they had to use horse and wagons, and eventually even the metal wagon wheels wouldn't work. That is all I can remember.

Answer 1

This is "The Year When Stardust Fell" by Raymond F. Jones, from 1958. One of the Winston series of YA books.

The menace in this story consists of dust from the tail of a comet. It consists of a colloid, analogous to smoke, that incorporates an unknown transuranic element. That element has a great affinity for metal surfaces and it weakens their surface tension, thereby enabling rapidly moving parts to cold weld themselves into solid rigidity.