In a message dated 7/20/2000 3:25:41 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
deadboy@hooked.net writes:
<< Does anybody have any suggestions or experience
with getting these thing out when they are in such a state? >>
Packy:
You didn't mention the state of your car--is it stripped down totally or did
you remove the dashboard from a daily driver? The first thing that comes to
mind is to apply acetyelene heat to the nut into which the bolt is screwed
behind the dash. Not a good option if you haven't removed the surrounding
equipment--and any bolted to the engine side of the firewall. Heat works
wonders for rust frozen bolts. With acetelyene, I have removed severely
frozen bolts AFTER their heads had completely broken off, and all I had was a
bit of the rusted bolt shaft sticking out of the hole.
Another thing would be to soak, soak, soak the nut and bolt with Rust buster
type liquid for a couple of days. Then try to turn it. With any method
attempt to turn it BOTH ways--sometimes it will turn just a hair to the right
but nary a hair to the left. If that happens, move it right, then back and
forth and the arc will increase until the bolt is coming out.
Is the bolt head stripped to where the wrench or socket spins on it or can
you still get a good grip? If it is not stripped, you can get a special
spring-loaded socket, I think called an Impact Wrench (?) that fits over the
bolt and you hit it with a BFH (Big F****** Hammer) after a lot of soaking.
That action applies a lot of torque to the bolt at the moment of impact which
will many times get it going.
Work with it--it will come out. The worst case scenario would be that you
might break it off, at which time you will have the oft-repeated activity of
drilling out the old bolt and retapping the hole a size larger or using an
insert. Neither of these are the kiss of death, remember. Just a step in
the grand scheme of keeping these vehicles on the road.
Good Luck.
--David C.
|