Nut Cracker Suite

December 1, 2020 8:52 AM

The Best Ways to Remove a Rusted Nut from a Bolt. It's an aggravating DIY challenge. And it turns out that the most commonly used techniques (WD-40, simple wrench, Vise-grips) aren't the most effective. The simple wrench in fact, makes things worse. (SLYT). The video lists sixteen (!) ways to conquer the rusted nut, from easiest to hardest.
posted by storybored (55 comments total)

Having fought with the bolts that secure the paddles on my snowblower, I have to say - impact driver is well worth it. A lot of the techniques listed here won't work for the snowblower, as there's no nut - just a rounded head Torx bolt. Nothing on the outside to grip. A shot of the PB B'laster rust remover (and YES it works way better than the WD-40!), a quick hit with the impact driver, and the damned thing is out. The first year I had to do this, I stripped multiple Torx wrenches/drivers before I gave up and borrowed an impact driver from a friend. This year, I bought my own. Even a cheapo Black & Decker rechargeable works great for small nuts and bolts.

The impact drivers are kind of bulky though! Depending on the angle of the bolt, it can be very hard to line the driver up with it.
posted by caution live frogs at 9:23 AM on December 1, 2020 [4 favorites]

I had to replace the rusted-out shell of my mom's 40-year-old mower deck this summer, transferring the parts from the old shell to the new one. I used some of thee techniques, plus one more: cut the nut or bolt off with a Dremel (fortunately not many, because it's slow and burns through cutting discs).

I'm surprised about the paraffin technique, though. I always thought you had to get the nut red hot for that to work. I'll have to try that one next time.
posted by dirigibleman at 9:31 AM on December 1, 2020

I have used or witnessed the use of all these techniques. The long cheater bar is the most reliable for me, fwiw. Also, PB Blaster is a gift from heaven when confronted with this situation. The only thing I consistently use WD-40 for these days is to remove the adhesive from stickers and price tags—it's the absolute bomb for that application.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 9:35 AM on December 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

Nut Cracker Suite

... aaaaand storybored wins the trophy for FPP Title of the Year!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:36 AM on December 1, 2020 [9 favorites]

Did not watch yet.

My technique: heat and beeswax (or similar waxy/slippery lubricant substance).

Rub the beeswax around the exposed threads. Heat the thicker part of the metal with a torch to draw the wax in to coat the threads.

I've used this technique with success on rusted-together 4" diameter steel pipe and fittings.
posted by cnidaria at 9:49 AM on December 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

The description reminded me of the Project Farm YouTube channel, which is worth a look if you're into this kind of stuff. He did a number of videos on various products that claim to deal with rusty bolts (e.g. Does Water work better than Penetrating Oil for Rusty Bolts?). But he tests a broad range of things, from useful to entirely silly. A small sample:

Best Plastic Car Trim Restorer?
Best Step Drill Bit?
Which AA Rechargeable Battery is Best after 1 Year?
Which Masking Tape is the Best?
Bacon Grease as Engine OIl?
posted by primethyme at 10:05 AM on December 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

#7- Using a hammer.
Isn't that a good way to flatten and expand the end of the bolt, making it harder to remove the nut?
posted by MtDewd at 10:18 AM on December 1, 2020

I learned the hard way, as a teenager, that it's really important when using the big lever arm technique that you make sure you're turning it in the correct direction. The sudden shearing off of a 3/8 inch bolt didn't result in injury, but it was memorable and embarrassing.
posted by eotvos at 10:21 AM on December 1, 2020

I have had success with tightening up stuck things with lids / fastenings a tiny fraction - easier to do than trying to undo them from scratch, presumably because you're going with the thread and it still breaks the seal enough for subsequent undoing to be successful. A never-fail on wedged screw tops and solid nuts.
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 10:40 AM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I'm with eotvos: straight power doesn't work on a bolt that's not heavy enough to handle the load. Where's the video for replacing the sheared off bolts?
posted by Cris E at 10:42 AM on December 1, 2020

I like the meme on this subject, even if I'm more likely to try penetrating oil.
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:48 AM on December 1, 2020 [8 favorites]

Did not watch yet.

Go ahead and watch, because your head-and-hard-lubricant technique is represented, although I don't know about the relative merits of paraffin and beeswax.

On a side note, this guy's... delivery... seems determined to... stretch... the video to ten... minutes. It played havoc with my AD/HD.
posted by traveler_ at 11:15 AM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

I love pb blaster.
posted by Grandysaur at 11:37 AM on December 1, 2020

If you're certain a bolt and nut are not actually galled together (stainless), chemically mated (touchless car wash), or low-grade welded (exhaust bolts): one thing that can help is actually turning the nut in the righty-tighty direction, just enough to break free. This trick is especially useful when the hex flats in the lefty-loosey direction are near the limits of rounded-off.

This tip has been brought to you by my knuckles and a 1965 International Travelall.
posted by notsnot at 11:38 AM on December 1, 2020 [9 favorites]

Seafoam Deep Creep.
posted by aramaic at 11:46 AM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

It played havoc with my AD/HD

I don't have to deal with AD/HD and it still really bugged me.

Team PB Blaster here.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:03 PM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

It played havoc with my AD/HD

I have noticed a lot of YT content where 30 seconds of info is stretched for minutes. Someone told me that it is about monetization.
posted by bz at 12:11 PM on December 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

Sheesh, money ruins everything.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:21 PM on December 1, 2020

I was thinking there was a peanut-butter-based snack called PB Blaster, but, after some Youtube searching, I may be thinking of '80s General Mills product, Peanut Butter Boppers.

(I remember a commercial, not this one, with a song about the product (lyrics along the lines of "creamy peanut butter in a way you've never seen/ Peanut Butter Boppers are a peanut butter dream"), but I'm wondering if I imagined the whole thing.)
posted by box at 12:25 PM on December 1, 2020

Add chili flakes to your peanut butter sandwich to make it a PB Blaster. (Adding PB Blaster penetrant to a sandwich makes it an inedible mess.)
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:28 PM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Conquer the Rusted Nut is the title of the Neil Young bootleg we never knew we needed
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 12:56 PM on December 1, 2020 [4 favorites]

It would be more convincing if it wasn’t the same nut over and over; for all I know the first method was the only one that worked.
posted by TedW at 1:26 PM on December 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

I prefer the Jedi method:

USE FORCE LUKE
posted by tspae at 2:52 PM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

My normal method is to drill straight through the rusty bolts, which is accompanied by much swearing as the cheater bar. I'll try these instead.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:56 PM on December 1, 2020

Rattle gun FTW. Every time. fffvVRDDTTTT and done.
posted by flabdablet at 5:18 PM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

It takes a certain amount of careful observation and experience to bring the best tools and techniques to bear for any given stubborn bolt/nut situation. Not long ago I had a cascading escalation of hostilities with some exhaust flange nuts. No impact gun available to me, so it was heat and penetrating oil, and a short sequence of increasing length cheater bars until the nuts were rounded off. A couple of different nut extractor sockets, as well as torch heating and manual hammering (and cussing) followed. The final solution was, after careful consideration of the mating parts, a right angle grinder to turn the nut and rusted bolt into sparks and dust until the remnant could be drifted out. Next time I see rusted nuts like that on an exhaust, I'm going straight for the grinder.
posted by coppertop at 6:55 PM on December 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

The final solution was, after careful consideration of the mating parts, a right angle grinder to turn the nut and rusted bolt into sparks and dust until the remnant could be drifted out. Next time I see rusted nuts like that on an exhaust, I'm going straight for the grinder.
posted by coppertop

Not always practical, but cutting them off is usually much faster, easier, and less stressful.
posted by Pouteria at 9:14 PM on December 1, 2020

BLOW TORCH
posted by clavdivs at 9:55 PM on December 1, 2020

I like the meme on this subject, even if I'm more likely to try penetrating oil.

In replacing my car's 15 year old suspension with coilovers this past spring, I used every option in that meme in a single afternoon.

The angle grinder was best for cutting off the end links, but the big boi bolts on the knuckles needed PB Blaster, a conversation with the BFH, and finally a combination of cherry-red heat and a three-foot breaker bar.

Tl;dr: Wisconsin rust doesn't mess around.
posted by transitional procedures at 10:02 PM on December 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

Amateurs. Everyone knows you have to use a shaped charge (or at least two sizes of drill bit and a decent tap to chase out their remains) on the bolt. The nuts are ridiculously easy. Talk to me when you can remove 8 broken spark plugs from a Mustang GT/F150 between 2005 and 2007 without buying the a kit, without removing the heads, without applying heat and without any debris dropping into the chamber.
posted by IronLizard at 4:45 AM on December 2, 2020

Metafilter: The Rusted Nut
posted by mule98J at 6:16 AM on December 2, 2020

a conversation with the BFH

I snorted.
posted by notsnot at 6:59 AM on December 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

With no offense intended to the poster, this thread is much better than the video.

Pro-tip to all: increase playback speed to 2x for slow talkers like this guy.

Agree with everyone that if you go around using a 5ft cheater bar you're going to be searching for the video on extracting broken off bolts.

And please, please don't hit the end of the threads with a hammer.

Battery operated angle grinder is my favorite tool.
posted by booooooze at 7:08 AM on December 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Breaking off bolts is just fine if they are through bolted. It's my go to solution in those cases on the theory that a bolt that is so rusted it'll break before working loose is something I don't want to re use anyways.

Now if someone has the perfect solution to corroded steel phillips machine screws threaded into an aluminum casting I'd love to hear it.
posted by Mitheral at 7:25 AM on December 2, 2020

Left-handed hinge-siting drill
posted by flabdablet at 9:03 AM on December 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Or make a drill guide
posted by flabdablet at 9:18 AM on December 2, 2020

I once had to unstick a very stuck 36mm castle nut holding the rear brake drum on my '73 Super Beetle. The brake had been dragging for a while and the nut likely hadn't been touched in the twenty years prior. It laughed at my feeble attempts to break it loose with a 3/4" air impact wrench, but I finally succeeded by jumping on a ~8' cheater bar on a 1" ratchet handle after soaking the nut and stub axle with PB Blaster and heat cycling it a couple times to red hot with an oxy-acetylene torch then chaining a long piece of angle iron through the rim to keep it from spinning which it did despite the parking brake being on and the transmission being in gear. I don't know what I would've done without access to my grandpa's welding machine shop! After that I became a firm believer in using anti-seize compound on things that needed to be taken apart especially if they were going to be exposed to the elements.

For smaller jobs though, I will add my endorsement to battery powered impact drivers. Once you have one you won't know how you lived without it. Even the small 1/4" ones are very handy to have around.
posted by Tangy Whisko at 10:39 AM on December 2, 2020

The crazy thing about PB Blaster, is that it's proper name is PB B'laster. Search engines on some hardware website aren't smart enough to know that.
posted by storybored at 10:59 AM on December 2, 2020

Ha! "its" not "it's".
posted by storybored at 11:00 AM on December 2, 2020

I’ve been working on a 22 year old truck (that I bought from a fellow Mefite!) lately. I’ve discovered that Seafoam (whose main product is a miracle elixir) makes a penetrating oil that works better than anything else of the sort I’ve tried, and I’ve got like five kinds of penetrating oil on hand here. And yeah impact driver FTW. And a rubber mallet.

You ain’t seen a rusted bolt until you’ve been under a 22 year old Ford truck that’s lived for a decade plus and hit nearly 200k miles in New England and you want to change the 4WD actuator motor. I think I invented new swear words.

But I got the fucker clean.
posted by spitbull at 6:28 PM on December 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Oh the Seafoam penetrating oil is called “Deep Creep.”
posted by spitbull at 7:57 PM on December 2, 2020

Now if someone has the perfect solution to corroded steel phillips machine screws threaded into an aluminum casting I'd love to hear it.

This turns out to be very much not a solution, but I wondered what would happen if you put a tiny droplet of gallium at the base of the stuck screw and came back 24 hours later to unscrew it.

I think you would be able to unscrew it because according to the linked video, gallium has very little effect on steel after 24 hours, but that the casting would be destroyed because gallium transforms aluminum into something with about the same strength and consistency as the chocolate part of an Oreo cookie after 24 hours.

I am a little surprised gallium's not a restricted substance after looking at that video (assuming that it isn't).
posted by jamjam at 8:59 PM on December 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

I am a little surprised that padlocks are still manufactured in aluminium alloys, given that Liquid Metal CPU coolant / mobo destroyer is now so easily obtainable.
posted by flabdablet at 12:25 AM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

There isn't a conventional padlock out there that provides more than a few seconds protection verses a battery powered grinder. And I've never encountered any non shrouded design that can't be defeated in seconds with bolt cutters. Padlocks only help honest people stay honest and provide "proof" to insurance companies.
posted by Mitheral at 12:37 AM on December 3, 2020

While the gallium approach is destructively amusing the casting is the head of my Makita 2040 thickness planer. And while it is theoretically available new it's also over C$1000 so not something I'm going to be rushing out to buy.

Drilling out and maybe heli-coiling is probably going to be the solution but the screws are holding down the roller bushing retainers which are under pressure from a spring. Besides being semi recessed the retainers are smaller than a loonie (maybe a nickle between the screwheads,) so it's going to be tricky to get a clamp in there so the thing doesn't explosively deconstruct once the screw head is drilled off. Especially considering the previous owner stripped out two screw heads. I can dremel a slot in the heads but there isn't space to grip the head with vice grips.

Impact driving (with an actual hit it with a hammer impact driver) didn't budge anything but I've being giving them a squirt of penetrating oil every time I walk by for a couple months now with the hope that maybe they'll loosen up.
posted by Mitheral at 1:21 AM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

I looked at that exploded parts diagram; you're talking about the knurled screws which adjust the pressure of the roller, right?

Could a screw-driven closed end adjustable wrench get enough of a grip to help, do you think?
posted by jamjam at 10:59 AM on December 3, 2020

The problem screws are #124 on part c of the exploded diagram.
posted by Mitheral at 11:49 AM on December 3, 2020

Could you weld something to the part you were contemplating cutting a slot into?
posted by flabdablet at 3:27 PM on December 3, 2020

Is the casting threaded? I assume from the way you're describing it that it is, and from the picture the part they're holding in place is not, so either way, I guess there must be a nut on the end of each of the two bolts as well?
posted by jamjam at 10:46 PM on December 3, 2020

Ya, the screws thread into tapped holes in the casting. I threw up some pictures where you can see how the screw heads are shrouded making normal balky screw extraction methods more difficult.
posted by Mitheral at 7:14 AM on December 4, 2020

Mitheral, Have you tried an impact tool such as this? Set it up with the largest phillips that fits, and use some brake cleaner to get all the detritus out of the screw heads. Smack with a hammer - the forward motion keeps the bit seated, but also imparts a little bit of turning force.
posted by notsnot at 8:34 AM on December 11, 2020

I had one of those. It was really good at snapping off the tips of Phillips-head tool bits. Loosening screws, not so much.
posted by flabdablet at 8:38 AM on December 11, 2020

Ya gotta use the bits that come with it. They're made of something very tough.
posted by notsnot at 3:47 PM on December 11, 2020

Those were the first ones it snapped. After the fifth set of replacements I gave up on it.
posted by flabdablet at 6:15 PM on December 11, 2020

Yes, that's the hit it with a hammer impact driver I was referring to though mine's so old it is contained in a metal case. In the past I've had good luck extracting larger Phillips head bolts out of washing machine transmission cases with it but I suspect, since I haven't snapped a head off yet, access is preventing proper force application. I need to remove the head from the table slides to really be able to swing the hammer; just got annoyed with so it's been back burnering for the last couple months.

Honestly though I'm just kinda mad at it. I had to sell my planer when I moved 15 years ago and I've been without ever since. I managed to trade labour for this one last year knowing it needed bushings and maybe rollers. I didn't know the reason it was sitting was someone had already tried unsuccessfully to change out the bushings. I wouldn't have traded quite so much labour if I had known that or if I'd known it was going to be so much trouble. Ugh!

Anyways when I asked up thread I was irrationally hoping someone would have a magic like solution (like someone was going to say "Spray some FeAl De'Galler-3000 on the screws and they'll come right out!") though I didn't really expect one.
posted by Mitheral at 8:12 PM on December 11, 2020 [1 favorite]