FTL

... ughhh this is such a pain in the ***, and I just bashed my finger in and it hurts like hell. Not quite sure where to go from here. I tried welding my two nuts together so they could be free, but it was a no go. Then I tried welding nut in front to the stud, and that was also a no go. The last weld made it so that the first nut could spin for awhile but it got stuck after a few turns and stripped also. Now I am down 2 nuts and a stud and not quite sure what to do next. It is too tight for vice grips. Might try to make a slit with a sawzall or something.

 

did you pb blaster the hell out of it? or try to heat it up

 

usually when i expect problems i try to spray them a couple days before hand, but i must say i live in PA and mine were nowhere near as rusty as yours

 

I found the smallest vicegrips I could in the garage, and amazingly they did the trick. I think the heat from welding helped a lot.

 

weld a larger nut at the end. And really weld the hell out of it. Take breaks regularly to not heat things up too much. Use more heat.

 

OMG! OUCH!

 

heh, stick welding.

 

u should get a tig machine. much easier to weld small things and no stupid slag to deal with

 

Fluxcore MIG.


FWIW, heating it would have made that "easy". There are a couple ways to play this as those are disimilar metals. For one, you could have just heated the stud red hot with an oxy-acetaline setup to break the rust/corrosion that was causing it to not turn. That would have made it doable with pliers...

Or heat the engine and then cool the stud with liquid CO2 by using a thing of compressed air turned upside down.

I could describe a few other techniques as well, but you got it already.

 

I chuckled also, and then felt ashamed for being so immature.....glad I'm not alone

 

I thought you guys would appreciate my humor

 

No, I was contributing to the juvenile "welding your nuts together" conversation.

 

I bought a set of these for problematic nuts http://www.nextag.com/Irwin-394001-B...68/prices-html

 

I am trying to avoid this in the future (though here in the southeast we dont have NEARLY as much rust as up north, and I had no problem at 100k miles removing the stock exhaust manifold) so I bought a set of exhaust hardware from MiataRoadster. Came with zinc coated studs that are slightly longer than stock, and copper nuts and stainless washers. It will look pretty at least with my RB header, until I can get a BEGi manifold to go on it, perhaps with a snail attached...

 

Holy crap that looks painful.

 

Impact, the easiest way to remove rusted on bolts w/o breaking them.

 

Dude, clean that engine compartment please! At least simple green it and scrub a little.

 

In the future, Craftsman makes a socket set that is specifically designed to get **** like that off.

Craftsman 10 pc. Damaged Bolt/Nut Remover Set, Low Profile Bolt-Out - Model 52166 at Sears.com

They work great.

 

i know ... i know I did wipe it down a little after taking the pictures, the flash really brings every little spec of dust out. Could use a bit of elbow grease up in there though. I just dont really feel like it until I get my turbo setup finished, its getting close now ... just need to finish the downpipe one of these weekends. I might clean that engine bay up in the meantime

 

I have a set of these and they're awesome when you strip the outside of a nut/bolt off. I think the OP stripped the nut from the inside though.

I stripped a flywheel bolt trying to get it off on a Sentra I was doing an engine swap on. I was SOOO pissed. I ended up using these and it gripped. Ended up using a 1/2" drive ratchet with a cheater bar to get the bolt loose, and the extractor held. Was a bitch getting the bolt out of the extractor though.