I used to have an old 23 foot wood Cos Cob ketch that had an 8 hp marine inboard. The carb and engine parts were obsolete. If I needed a part, I had to have it machined or welded up. The carb seemed to need a rebuild every few months and I figured I was just not doing a good job so I started taking it to a place that specialized in carb rebuilding. They would take it apart, put it in a basket, and dunk it in a huge tank of some kind of black, boiling liquid. Their rebuilds would last a whole year. After the third year, the carb developed an air leak so I could never adjust it to work properly. They fixed that and explained to me why it happened.
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I usually end up pulling out other tools or methods to try and the welder in extreme cases to make something or weld a nut onto a stud. Worse comes to worse I’m not afraid to have the car towed to a shop and chalk it up to a valient try. One time it took them an hour to find a missing fuse after I fussed with it for a day.
Also don’t be afraid to set it aside for a day if possible and sleep on it.
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That usually works for me also.
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Stepping away from the problem often helps. You get out of unproductive mental loops and negative self-talk that way.
I try to repair anything that goes wrong in my house: furnace, electrical, plumbing, carpentry, plus cars, mower, snowblower, computer, smoke alarm––you name it. So I’m often doing things that I don’t have a lot of specific experience with and hit a lot of snags.
Getting your mind onto something else, and sleeping on it can often work wonders. A seemingly impossible problem often finds a simple solution.
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BTW, PB Blaster is very overrated as a penetrant. A review of penetrating oils by Machinist’s Workshop magazine found that a 50-50 mix of transmission fluid and acetone is by far the best at loosening locked bolts.
KanoKroil is the next best, but only about half as good as homebrew ATF+acetone. Kroil is followed closely by the (much cheaper) good old Liquid Wrench! PB Blaster is only about half as good as these two, and WD-40 still a little worse.
Penetrant Type . . . . . . . . Average load
- None …………………. 516 pounds
- WD-40 ………………… 238 pounds
- PB Blaster …………… 214 pounds
- Liquid Wrench ……… 127 pounds
- Kano Kroil …………… 106 pounds
- ATF-Acetone mix…….53 pounds
The “loads” are the force required to loosen as measured with a torque wrench.
Did Machinists Workshop disclose how many rusted nuts or bolts they used for each penetrant and what the standard error is? There’s more to it than the average load.
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Good questions. I don’t know the answer. I can’t find the Machinists Workshop* article online now, but only a post that cites it.
Obviously it is impossible to duplicate the precise conditions of rust-locking on two or more separate bolts. As I recall they exposed a number of identically manufactured bolts to the same conditions (salt water baths, as I recall) over the same period of time. I don’t know how else you could do a test, because the same bolt obviously could not be tested with different penetrants as you’d never know which one was doing the best ob of freeing it.
It seemed like about as good a comparison test as you could do without spending milllions of dollars. Do you have any reason to doubt it. Do you have a partiality to PB Blaster, or are you just questioning the results generally?
I have another reason for thinking it is largely a sales hype. It is the number of people who know nothing at all about mechanics, even the home-garage variety, who praise it as the cat’s pajamas. That’s a sign of good advertising penetration to me––whatever the quality of the penetrant being hyped.
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Summary of above vdo:
In order of best to worse, loosening stuck fasteners
Heat, Liquid Wrench, Acetone/ATF (HomeBrew), Royal Purple, WD-40, PB Blaster, Aero Kroll, Nothing (Dry).
Seems to me results could vary by
- If fastener has a lot of gunk blocking the threads, does it still work as well?
- If heat is needed after penetrant has been applied, are resulting fumes harmful to health?
In my own limited experience, comparing my own home-brew (1/3 Acetone, 1/3 AT*, 1/3 WD40) to PB Blaster, my homebrew works better as long as threads are not blocked by gunk. If gunk-blocked, Blaster works a little better. If not much time available to wait for it to work, Blaster seems a little better, homebrew needs more time. Liquid Wrench compared to my homebrew, both seem pretty similar.
“*” Mercon V ATF
Note: I reported here previously, in some cases penetrants just aren’t effective enough to loosen a corroded threaded connection. I experimented w/ a rusted 1/2 inch galvanized pipe threaded into a fitting, no access problems at all, nothing I did was able break it loose. Tried heat as well, approached red hot, but from propane torch, not oxy-acetylene.
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I quit using liquid wrench years ago unless they changed their formula. Think I still have a can but not sure how to dispose of it. I use pb.
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I just want to understand how they conducted their test and if possible to see what the variability in the results was. Your description of sample preparation indicates that they wanted an impartial test.
Nope just a spray can of the stuff with no sprayer. Probably 30 years old. Do not puncture but I’m about to do it anyway to empty it so I can throw it in the trash. If I wasn’t in town I’d shoot it with the 22. What could go wrong?
Yeah, it didn’t look to me like they were trying to favor any particular brand label. In fact, the winner by a long shot was ATF + acetone.
All I can say is based on personal experience over many years. I have used almost all of those penetrants at one time or another. I was using Kroil when a friend introduced me to B’Laster PB. The difference was quite noticeable. A few years back, Tester mentioned Seafoam Deep Creep. I couldn’t find B’laster PB so I tried the Deep Creep and found it was as good if not better. I base this only on qualitative results and not any type of controlled quantitative testing. Least amount of soak time, application repetition, visible penetration after removal etc.
Let’s walk away from the dreaded rusted fastener problem for a moment.
I replaced a convertible top a few years ago. I had a good internet text (not video) source for how to do the job so I figured I could do this myself. It took 4 weeks because I kept running into things that should go together that my hands would NOT pull together. Stretching canvas tops is a bear! Especially in a very small car. The 4 weeks time was so I could think about how to accomplish each task at hand. I refused to give up.
I succeeded. The top looked great when done… BUT I’d pay someone else to do that job again in a heartbeat. Sometimes a pro is the way to go.
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So true. Sometimes, the pro has a tool or trick that helps them do it efficiently. I recall one time trying to stretch some fabric, I think a bimini top IIRC. I ran across a FofaF that told me, we get those wet and they stretch easier. Doh!
But more often than not, I end up getting burned so that’s why I do almost everything myself if I possibly can.
After my most recent exhaust manifold replacement, I swore I would take it in if that ever happens again. But I bet by then the memory of the pain and suffering will have subsided 
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