There are so many out there, and who can try them all side-by-side? Personally mine is Corrosion-X. Any other votes?
I’ve used them all. And the best I’ve found so far is Seafoam Deep Creep.
Tester
Ive never seen Deep Creep where do you get it
Pb Blaster. Available at auto stores,hardware,and even Walmart.
PB Blaster
PB-Blaster is up at the top but more often than not I use ATF.
PB Going once going twice…
BP blaster, jay
The guys used to like Break-Free but I don’t know where or if it is still sold. They used to pour it in cylinders to free oil control rings.
Years ago a product called SOK was very good but only available through an industrial supplier for a case of 12 for $100+. It must have had an environmental problem since it disappeared suddenly. PB is close, though. I still see a lot of WD-40 used as penetrating oil.
I have a problem with “bosses” who deal with a report frome a mechanic that some kind of threaded part is rusted tight with its coresponding part (the example that comes to mind is the nuts on the exhaust studs on BMW M20 engines, these studs break off very easy).When you say a stud broke off the reply is “did you spray some xyz on it before you tried to loosen it”? The problem I have is that these products all take some time to do the magic they were designed to do (many think “hit it with the oil and it is as free as a bird”, and I mean right now). If you want timely results use the torch, my favorite for sure.
You mean the old torch is better than all these fancy chemicals? Tell us more, are you saying quickest, or if you had an hour to kill would you then prefer the spray? Or is it longer than an hour? And heat, are we talking acetylene or will propane do? Then do we wrench it while red hot, or let it cool first?
PB has been good for me, but nothing beats the hot wrench for those really stubborn nuts and bolts, especially for exhaust flange hardware. Use oxyacetylene or oxypropane to get that nut glowing orange and practically ready to melt, then pull the torch away, put your socket on there, and slowly loosen it up, being careful not to put any lateral force whatsoever on the nut. Works like a charm, and the hardware goes back together cold without a complaint.
And the OTHER good thing about heating the hardware is that it expands and the socket gets a better grip on it.
I once seen a guy heat a bolt just enough to allow crayon to be sucked in like solder and it worked…the bolt came loose.
The torch works great but the potential for doing damage is also great, it cannot be applied in every situation. I estimate that of the frozen bolts I have removed it would have been safe to use the torch in about 15% of the situations. Just like using the pressure washer you have to use a bit of restraint when using the torch. At the shop OXY/Acetlyene was always available but the home guy may have to stick with propane. Don’t lay any heat on suspension components, boil the brake fluid, roast a rubber part,or melt a harness. These are tings that usually don’t get damaged by the products that work via chemical action.
My vote is for PBBlaster for the store bought stuff. The homebrew concoction of mineral spirits/kerosene/alcohol works well.
After that it’s acetlylene and EZ Outs are seldom considered.
I have used Deep Creep and PB Blaster. Maybe I didn’t wait long enough for it to creep deply enough, but PB seems to work better for me. My only gripe is that almost every can I have ever bought seems to run out of propellant before it runs out of “blaster”. Does anyone else have that problem?
I have not mixed up a 50-50 batch of Acetone and transmission fluid yet, but it seems to work well in a semi-scientific test. See: http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f11/atf-acetone-vs-pb-blaster-others-766271/ , and http://images.pemc.co.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=333&sid=c6e25c49db05c14635da2794d6dd6ecd. I know I read the original study somewhere, (Possibly here?) but I can’t find a link to the “Machinist’s Workshop Magazine” as listed. At any rate, several nuts were chemically rusted to bolts, all in the same manner, so they’d require the same amount of torque to remove them without any penetrant. Then the different penetrants were applied. Torque readings were taken when the nuts began to turn.
When I was swinging wrenches the oxy/acty torch was great, heat it up red hot and buzz it right off. For years I kept as trophies 3 bolts (3/8) I pulled out of Buick manifolds that had visible twisting and almost broke off but the “red wrench” got them off. These bolts held on the Y pipe to the manifold. Buick did not use studs but bolts. The exposed part of the bolts were about the diameter of a #9 or #10 machine screw but they came out.
Away from the shop for years so I vote for PB Blast.
CRC Rustbuster. Liquid wrench. PB Blaster. Mopar Heat Riser Solvent. Sea Foam Deep Creep. They all seem to work equally well. At the one dealer I was at I did all the alignments. Many, many frozen tie rods. We were using PB blaster, but the parts department switched to Deep Creep. The older guys said it was crap, but I found it worked just as well.