I’m trying to replace the front sway bars on my 350Z, and one of the two nuts that holds the stock bar on was very tight, and I rounded it in trying to get it off.
Before doing too much damage, I squirted some WD-40 on it. Didn’t help. Eventually, I used vise-grips, but they just rounded it further. (It’s a 10mm/1.25 flange nut, if that makes any difference to anyone)
So now I’m stumped. I have an impact driver, but there’s not enough clearance in that area to use it.
I’m thinking I’ll have to take it to my repair shop and ask them to get it off somehow (and perhaps replace the sway bar while they’re at it).
But if any of my fellow Dopers have any suggestions that will save me a couple of bucks, I’d appreciate it.
If you have a few inches clearance around it you can pick up what I refer to as a “nut cracker.” Sears or most auto parts stores should have them. They are inexpensive. In short, you’re tightening a wedge onto the nut and it will eventually crack it. If you do not have enough clearance you might be limited to a cold chisel. Not real sophisticated, but it will work.
In my machinist days I used a center punch to remove many stuck fasteners: Find an accessible spot on the perimeter or top edge of the fastener, pound it a few times to make a deep dent, and then start pounding it in a direction tangential to the fastener. The goal is for the tangential whacks to cause the fastener to turn slightly, enough to break its grip.
It worked sometimes, and sometimes it didn’t.
Of course, this was on clean rust-free industrial machinery. Never tried it on an automobile before.
You might be able to get in there with a hacksaw blade and saw it away. JUST the blade, held by vice grips or whatever. Go buy a few NEW hacksaw blades made specifically for metal. Don’t try using old worn out blades.
I can try the center punch thing, but I suspect that if it wouldn’t come off with the vice grips, a few bangs with a hammer aren’t going to do much.
I’ll see if I can find a “nut cracker.”
One thing I meant to mention is that I would prefer, if possible, to do no damage to the bolt in this operation, because it is integral to the endlink, and I suspect that replacing it might be expensive.
you might also try using a file to refile down two flat surfaces on opposite sides of the nut. In this case, it would again be worth it to go buy a brand new file, probably coarse, speficially made for metal, rather than using something you have laying around.
Take your time and REALLY file it down before you attemp to use a wrench or vise grips.
And, sometimes when dealing with a tight nut, it helps to try to tighten it a bit before loosening it. sound strange, but its worked for me before.
I second that. Its expensive and nasty toxic, but by far that stuff has loosened more nuts than Hillary Clinton. Auto Zone carries it. Make sure to not get it on paint or plastic or rubber parts. It works better than anything else I’ve tried.
My favorite way of removing rusted-on nuts is to slot one side with a dremel cut-off wheel, and then crack the nut with a screwdriver. Of course, you need some clearance to do this.
First of all, don’t use WD-40 as thread lubrication, either installing or removing threaded fasteners. For removal use penetrating oil or brake cleaner.
Second, as SanDiegoTim mentioned, there is a tool specifically for loosening or fracturing nuts called a nut breaker. Hammering on the nut, heating it, or welding another nut on are less than desirable methods because of the possibility of damaging something else, like a crossmember. Cutting through the nut with a cutter or Dremel-type tool is possible as long as you are careful not to cut into the threads, but I’d just spend the $10 or so to buy a nut breaker.
The fact that you stripped the external faces on the nut suggests that you were either using the wrong size wrench/socket head, or that you need better tools with tighter clearances. I worked one failure years back where field techs kept having to drill off bolt heads to remove crossmember. It turned out that the reason was that the installer was using a near-sized SAE wrench on a metric bolt head, and when the faces of the bolt head came in the lower end of the range he would strip the faces. (Not the fault of the factory installers; we were using a component built in Europe that naturally used metric fasteners on an American-built machine and he hadn’t been provided with or even informed of the need for a metric tool.)
This is the kind of socket I use for hex nuts/bolts that are rounded or eroded down. I’ve found that the exact size needed can vary with precisely how much the fastener head is worn down, so it really helps to have a set of them (rather than buy just one and find it doesn’t quite fit).
Update: I’ve tried most of the suggestions offered here, and a few others as well, but that damned nut is still on.
I got a nut splitter, but (and I’m sorry I forgot to mention this) it’s a flange nut, so between the rounding I’ve done to it and the flange, the nut splitter won’t hold onto the thing. As I tighten it down, it just slides up off the nut, and there’s no way to keep it on. So that’s out.
The last thing I did this evening was buy a tool set like the one Gary T recommended, as well as some PB Blaster. I’ll give them a shot tomorrow, and if I still have no joy, it’s off to the shop.
Stranger: I was using a Craftsman socket of precisely the right size (17mm). The problem nut’s counterpart on the other side of the car came off with no problem. But on this side, the placement of the part didn’t allow me to rotate the breaker bar in a plane perfectly perpendicular to the axis of rotation. That, combined with a **very ** tight, and apparently rather soft, part, led to the problem.
BTW, are you saying **not **to use WD-40 to help loosen tight parts? Isn’t that its stated function?
Thanks for all the suggestions. I’ll post a further update tomorrow.
Probably too late for this project, but in the future…
If you round off the corners in the way you described, get a new 6 sided socket before you go in with vice grips, channel locks, monkey wrench, whatever.
The 6 sided socket will fit snugly against the entire remaining face to give you the most traction for removing the stuck nut or bolt.
If you’ve gotten to the point you have to use a hacksaw or Dremel type tool, cut down beside the bolt where you won’t be cutting into it. Some people have trouble visualizing that from a description. Think of a lower case ‘d’. The circle is the bolt and the back is where you will be cutting.
And it is actually kind of bad for both, especially as a lubricant, because after the volatiles evaporate the gummy residue becomes hygroscopic and can promote corrosion. While it is the stock-in-trade lubricant in grandad’s toolbox, there are much better lubricants and cleaners on the market today.
Try a pipe wrench if one will fit. It is designed to grip round things. I had to remove an oil drain plug once and there was very little left. The pipe wrench had no problem removing the plug.
That’s weird. The machine shop guy specifically told me to spray his tools with WD-40 to prevent corrosion. I had to wash his tools in soap and water after working on my pump. The WD-40 was used to remove the water.
