Equipment needed to disassemble heavily rusted old plow

[pmsmechanic]

I use heat and a wax candle. The heat from a propane torch is fine but a Mapp torch is better. Oxy/acetylene or a tiger torch works well too. Just get the whole nut warm enough to melt the wax and use it as a penetrating oil. Wax seems to flow in better than anything as long as your using enough heat to keep the wax melted.

Once you have the wax in there just take two hammers and hold one under the side of the nut and then hit the opposite side. You don't need to hit hard you just want to set up a vibration between the nut and the bolt to help the wax penetrate. For the same reason it will help to hit the bolt on the head while it's warm. Do this several times and you won't even need a cheater pipe on your breaker bar.

I don't like to get nuts red hot with w torch when I'm trying to remove them as it seems that once they cool they shrink and are tighter than they were before. Good luck

I should add that an impact wrench set low enough so as not to twist off the bolt also sets up enough vibration to loosen the bolts once they have wax on them.

 

[DFB]

I think you need a bigger impact wrench

 

[Coyote machine]

I'd use an impact socket, like it looks like you are using in your pic, and a large breaker bar, depending on the nut/bolt and if you just want it removed or snapped off. Heat can be good, but you have fused rust there from a long time of weather and oxidation having wreaked ruin on the fasteners.
The suggestions of Flusher and pmsmechanic are solid too.

Mapp gas is way hotter than propane, and oxy/acetylene is even more effective.
Depending on if saving the fastener is the objective, I find that sometimes judicious amounts of heat will work if combined with using a hammer to smack the nut flanges to loosen up the rust and free the threads from the bolt. Then try using the bolt threads to recut the nut threads and vis-versa by using a rachet to tighten/loosen over and over until the nut works loose.

 

[284 International]

Coyote Machine, Flusher, and pmsmechanic have given really good advice, in my view.

I have gone to almost automatically grabbing the 4 inch angle grinder or the welder if a fastener is stubborn. Welding a piece of pipe, an old bolt, or even a stub of rebar onto the available portion has usually let me undo fasteners with just finger pressure, at most a pair of pliers or small pipe wrench; it's quite astonishing, frankly.

Or, I just slice the nut with the grinder, even if not full-depth, then wallop the flat with a punch or chisel. The nut may take another cut on the other side, but it usually pops off quickly.

The time saving I get here more than justifies the expense of a few nuts or bolts, and the nuts are easy to replace, and wrecking them saves the original bolt, which is sometimes hard or impossible to obtain.

Applying huge amounts of torque typically breaks the bolt, which is the more expensive and/or difficult to find of the two, so I'd rather just go straight to destroying a nut and be done rather than straining my back, bruising knuckles, or looking foolish trying to kick or jump on a breaker bar, and crashing to the ground when the bolt breaks....

 

[Egon]

I use heat and a wax candle. The heat from a propane torch is fine but a Mapp torch is better. Oxy/acetylene or a tiger torch works well too. Just get the whole nut warm enough to melt the wax and use it as a penetrating oil. Wax seems to flow in better than anything as long as your using enough heat to keep the wax melted.

Once you have the wax in there just take two hammers and hold one under the side of the nut and then hit the opposite side. You don't need to hit hard you just want to set up a vibration between the nut and the bolt to help the wax penetrate. For the same reason it will help to hit the bolt on the head while it's warm. Do this several times and you won't even need a cheater pipe on your breaker bar.

I don't like to get nuts red hot with w torch when I'm trying to remove them as it seems that once they cool they shrink and are tighter than they were before. Good luck

I should add that an impact wrench set low enough so as not to twist off the bolt also sets up enough vibration to loosen the bolts once they have wax on them.

Wax=kinda like flux when soldering

The two hammers work very well. Just make sure the back up is larger.
Rust expands in place when it forms. ( already mentioned??)

 

[lhfarm]

I use heat and a wax candle. The heat from a propane torch is fine but a Mapp torch is better. Oxy/acetylene or a tiger torch works well too. Just get the whole nut warm enough to melt the wax and use it as a penetrating oil. Wax seems to flow in better than anything as long as your using enough heat to keep the wax melted.

Once you have the wax in there just take two hammers and hold one under the side of the nut and then hit the opposite side. You don't need to hit hard you just want to set up a vibration between the nut and the bolt to help the wax penetrate. For the same reason it will help to hit the bolt on the head while it's warm. Do this several times and you won't even need a cheater pipe on your breaker bar.

I don't like to get nuts red hot with w torch when I'm trying to remove them as it seems that once they cool they shrink and are tighter than they were before. Good luck

I should add that an impact wrench set low enough so as not to twist off the bolt also sets up enough vibration to loosen the bolts once they have wax on them.

I'll certainly give this a try. Our first home was built around 1900 using native oak and poplar. I hired an old handyman in town to help me with some remodeling. I was watching him drive mails into the dried oak with ease while I was wasting blows and nails. I asked him for his secret and he said it was a trick he had learned when he was a young man. He drilled a hole in the end of his hammer handle and filled it with wax. Then he would insert the nail into the wax. I tried it and it was amazing what a difference it made. I still couldn't drive nails like this old guy, but I did learn the magic of wax.

However I never thought of using it on rusty metal. Curious as to how you found this method.

Thanks,
Barry

 

[pmsmechanic]

However I never thought of using it on rusty metal. Curious as to how you found this method.

Thanks,
Barry

I can't take credit for the idea. We live in an oil producing area and my brother worked for a drill bit rebuilding company and wax is what they used to help remove the inserts etc. that were in the bit.

I've been amazed at what a guy can do with a bit of wax. I keep candles everywhere because you never know when you can use them. Many times I just weld a nut onto a broken off bolt, apply a bit of wax and turn them out. The heat from the welding is enough to melt the wax. One of the most notable that comes to mind is a broken off turbo charger mounting bolt. It had been broken for at least ten years and I still got it to turn out with out using anything but welded on nut and wax. I had to weld a nut on several times and tap the casting with a hammer but once I got it to move I knew I had won the battle. It was a 3/8th's bolt and I just used a short strong arm and worked the nut back and forth. At first it was just a tiny bit of movement but it's enough to wear away the rust on the threads.

 

[s219]

I used to put beeswax on screws for woodworking projects in the old days, when hand screwdrivers were used all of the time. I'd be worried about putting it on nails -- seems like it would let them work loose easier.

Nail-gun nails are often coated with a glue that melts under friction, making the nail go in easier and then setting back up to keep it stuck in better. Some of those are near impossible to pull out -- the head will break off before the nail moves. Even trying to pull by the shank is impossible many times. I suspect the same idea wouldn't work for hammer-driven nails, as I don't think enough heat is generated with separate hammer blows compared to a nail gun's one big wallop.

 

[Richard]

I keep candles everywhere because you never know when you can use them.

All this time I thought you were just the sensitive type...

 

[lhfarm]

It worked! Only took an hour to get both coulters and joiners off. I used the candle wax heated by my little propane torch. Did the two hammers and repeated the process. Then used a breaker bar and got them moving. More wax and heat and moved the nut back and forth a few times. Then used the impact wrench for the final turns.

I took my time and didn't rush things. I was even able to pull up a chair for most of the work (it's the white object at the bottom of the picture). Thanks again for all the advice and suggestions. Sure glad I asked!