Stories of Rusty Nuts

I was doing the front wheel bearing on a Focus today and it took two whacks with the BFH to drop the ball joint out of the hub, Socal is easy on these parts. I'm sure on a five year old Focus in the NE it would take a hot wrench, four letter words, beer, and an exorcism.

What stories of ridiculousness do you guys have when it comes to getting rusty things apart? I have some experience with PB Blaster and Kroil combined with MAPP gas.

How do you make it easier the second time? Does anti-sieze on the ball joints and other connections help?

Save the rusty trombone stories for a different forum.

Define BFH. One hand or two?

My 94 Subaru Legacy required a 2 hand BFH to get any of the brake rotors off.

EVERY TIME.

My nissan nx2k came from the baltimore region and I can't recall a single 10mm fastener that didn't break as soon as I touched it. The ABS sensors also disintegrated in front of my eyes.

I also had a mercury zephyr (I know, jealous) that had an interesting rust problem. The next owner told be both rear springs rusted and broke. I had no idea.

Does anti-seize on the hub help with rotors rusting to the hub?

I only needed the one handed mini sledge today so maybe mini-BFH.

A 2-by-4 and a sledgehammer to remove front rotor from my dakota.

Oh God, I don't even know where to start...

How about the one time I put a 5 foot snipe UNDERNEATH THE CAR and lowered it on top of the snipe to get a suspension bolt loose? I could have given two whatevers at that point, I was hoping the bolt would twist into pieces so I could hammer it out.

on my old 88 chevy truck...

lugnut rusted to stud, went to remove, and spun the pair - tore the knurls off the stud. my dad torched the stud out of the nut without hurting the paint on my wheel.

How did he do that? I had a stud spin on a car and they went to town with all kinds of tools of destruction. Of course it was the same knuckleheads that spun the stud in the first place. According to them it happens all the time when cars get old, the car was 6 years old. Reality was some brain donor tried to zip the lug nut on with an impact.

i once had a wheels that was rusted to the hub so bad that loosening all the lug nuts a few turns and going for a spirited drive around the block wasn't enough to knock it loose.. but when i jacked the car up, took the nuts all the way off, and threw a 6 foot long piece of 4X4 lumber at the inside of the rim it fell right off..

I have a 10 foot piece of fence pipe I keep around as a breaker bar, welcome to the northeast.

In 50% of the situations it's weight alone is enough to pop most wheel nuts, hub nuts etc.

The rest of the time only a small amount of force is needed, it will either break the bolt free or just plain break the bolt.

It has only failed me once, trying to remove the lug bolts from a 67 Beetle which had sat in a roofless barn for 15 years. Ended up having to remove the whole drum with wheel attached and just replaced everything since they were beyond usable at that point anyway.

Uh, I think I win on rust stories, I own a Fiat, and it's almost rust-free (again, for a Fiat).

When reattaching rear-bumpers the original mounting points had the stock bolts in place when the PO bondo'd up the body when they de-bumpered the whole car. When i went to replace the bumpers, the bolts were literally rusted into the bracket. Let me say that again, the bolts had become one with the bracket. There was no getting it out

Oh jesus.

Worst: Wife's 87 Integra. Thermostat goes bad. One of those mythical "10 minute jobs." First bolt loosens up, no problem. Second bolt is slighlty rounded. Soak in PB blast just in case. GENTLY turn ratchet till I feel it start to slip. Repeat. Try every trick in the book, but still end up rounding the sh*t out of it.

2 broken easy outs. Removed a ton of E36 M3 to get access with the dremel to cut a lovely, flat groove, dead-center. Make 18,000 foolhearted attempts at removing w/flathead screw-driver. Scratch head and curse a lot.

Finally, someone recommends these:

Best_tool_investment_evar.

Mind boggling: Swapping transmissions on Maroon92's Aspire. Easy peasy japaneesy, right?

Go to remove axles. Have a 'feats of strength' competition between me, Kevin, and Tommy the Tank. These berkeleyers WILL NOT MOVE.

3 broken/bent pry-bars, one 36" long. 2 broken air-chisel attachments, one lodged between axle and diff. Finally, we removed the tranny, axles still in. 2 people standing on tranny, one person with a pry bar, handle slid into a 6' long piece of pipe, and still wore our arm-wrestling champion the berkeley out.

I need a dead blow hammer to get the wheels off on my Cadavalier and they are usually removed every 2-3 weeks now because something else broke.

I twisted two 3/4" breaker bars (with the help of my dad and a 10ft pipe) using a torch and PB Blaster while trying to get the flywheel nut off of a 13B. Ended up renting a 1" impact gun and hammering away until it finally broke loose.

bluesideup wrote: How do you make it easier the second time? Does anti-sieze on the ball joints and other connections help?

I tried that on all my suspension components and it didn't last. Water washed most of the antisieze away and after 6 months it was the same as if I never applied it.

About 100 years ago, I had a Bultaco motorcycle with an owners manual which contained this sentence: "If you are a person of unusual physical strength, do not engage in a battle of wills with the nuts and bolts on this motorcycle."

Just had to share that.

In reply to chuckles:

That sounds like something out of a Haynes Manual. Frigging hilarious.

I once had a drum rust onto the axle of a Volvo 122. Well, not once, just about all the time. But this one, it was particularly stubborn. I had the JC Whitney 3 jaw drum puller air-impact driver'd on there as hard as it would go, and I whacked at it repeatedly with a 25 pound sledge. Heated with a MAAP torch, PBlastered the Bejesus out of it, nothing. I finally got fed up, dropped the axle (with the drum puller still attached) and tossed the whole thing in a dark, spider-infested corner of my garage...

3 months later, I walked past it, and happened to be holding my 25 pound sledge. I took a good whack at it and BONG the drum popped right off.

Like what's-his-face said in Shawshank Redemption, it just takes pressure, and time.

The Big Red Wrench is the only recorse in lands where the undercarage of cars looks to be coated in Wheaties cereal.

bluesideup wrote: Does anti-seize on the hub help with rotors rusting to the hub? I only needed the one handed mini sledge today so maybe mini-BFH.

Yes it does. Up here where things like to rust anti-seize is your best friend.

I'd rather them rusty then Rhinolined.

In reply to chuckles:

Am I the only one who immediately thought of R.O.U.S.?

I live in the northeast. Every fastener I ever deal with is a battle with rust, and oftentimes with caked on dirt, gravel and/or salt. I own a nut splitter because no matter what I tried the ball joint nut was not coming off an old Saab 9000 I had. And yes, I wince and cover my groin every time that tool is mentioned.

The blue wrench is my best friend. I also discovered that it is great for getting a BBQ up to speed in about 2 minutes. The rosebud tip works best for this.

Lighter fluid is so over rated.

I wrung off an exhaust bolt changing the daughters clutch the other weekend. Does that count.

Probably the worst I have ever come across is front hubs on a Jeep we used to off road in. The sequence was to install the puller and tighten until it wouldn't move anymore and go to bed. If you were lucky it would be off by morning and laying about ten feet away. If not, time for the BFH and heat.

Ha. Whenever I do anything involving the suspension on my protege it usually leads to me pulling our the high speed rotary tool. It's my favorite wrench I own. You can see me using it to the left to get a silencer out of my exhaust.