Grant wrote:Well I have successfully gotten one side out, but no such luck on the other side. The bolt holding the two sides together is seized. Any tips, as it is really difficult to get a socket on either the bolt or nut, and I am afraid I am starting to round the nut using an open end wrench.
I say to my son when he's taken my tools and not put them back "The right tools and the right technique makes a 5 minute job take 3 minutes, without the right tools it takes 5 hours"...
In my experience - generally there is much more friction on a bolt than the nut so go for the nut to undo. Cleaning up the threads first and applying a bit of penetrating oil helps too.
A set of dies to run up the thread with the correct one is a good way to remove rust, paint etc so once the nut is loose it isn't a struggle all the way, unless it's a nylock of course!
Never use an 'open ended' unless really necessary - if there are threads sticking out and a deep socket can't get on a 'crows foot' is better than an open ended.
When it comes to sockets - the man who invented bi-hex should be
Best sockets are those that load the faces, not the points - loading of points can lead to rounding of nuts, particularly with bi-hex. (Nothing wrong with having round nuts in the right place
)
I've also found that having a mix of imperial and metric sockets useful - e.g. a corroded 13mm bolt can often be undone by banging on a 1/2" socket (12.7mm approx) - and if a 1/2" hex wont go on a 1/2" bi-hex probably will...
I've also got a collection of 'thin wall' sockets where I've ground the outside down to enable them to get into awkward places and a 1/2" square drive breaker bar that's 23" long and gets about 180 ft lb torque on a nut fairly easily.
Sometimes the bolts shear, sometimes the 'thin wall' sockets explode, but generally things comes to pieces without too much argument ...
If it doesn't a nut splitter is useful. I've got oxy acetylene which I'll use to expand a nut by heat when the component is in a vice on the bench but never use it for anything still on the car.