Stripped Pinch Bolt

TVgod said:

Success. Hit it with PB Blaster twice a day for four days. Hammered in a torx and loosened with a breaker bar. I was ready to still strain and barely get it loose on the first turn. In actually came out easily. Obviously the penetrating oil was the trick. I probably could have loosened it without pounding the torx in so far. Hard to know at this point. The important thing is that it worked!

Thanks to all of you for all your input.

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the exhaust bolts on a DR350 that i just bought were frozen in the head. sprayed cable lube on them for three days and each day i would tap them with a light hammer. on the fourth day, I put the allen wrench in and they just went "pop" and out they came. yeah soak them, tap them,patience and pray.

Crew Chief said:

I like the ATF/Acetone concoction too, although in practice I tend to grab whatever is handy.

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Something very similar is marketed under the name AEROKROIL.. Works like magic on stuck hardware..


For All of you Mechanic's and Self doer’s out there.
Penetrating Oil - interesting
This was in one of the Military Vehicle Club newsletters

Here is an interesting finding on Penetrating Oils
Recently “Machinist Workshop Magazine” did a test on penetrating oils. Using nuts and
bolts that they ‘scientifically rusted’ to a uniform degree by soaking in salt water, they then
tested the break-out torque required to loosen the nuts. They treated the nuts with a variety
of penetrants and measured the torque required to loosen them.
This is what they came up with:
Nothing: 516 lbs
WD-40: 238 lbs;
PB Blaster: 214 lbs;
Liquid Wrench: 127 lbs,
Kano Kroil: 106 lbs
(ATF)/Acetone mix (50/50): 50 lbs.

This last “shop brew” of 50% automatic transmission fluid and 50% acetone appears to beat
out the commercially prepared products costing far more.

NOTE: I can't personally vouch for the results, 'cause I haven't read the magazine or tried it yet.

A little operating experience ...

I too attempted to seat a torx bit into a rounded socket head.
One of the lug bolts on my GS.

I tapped the T50 into the lug, put on a standard 3/8 drive ratchet with a 6" expension for my knuckles to clear and snap ... broke the torx bit. One end was on the ratchet and the other was no stuck in the lug bolt.

It was a 1 piece, cast tool I had picked up at HF or NT.

I think the failure mechanism was both metallurgy and age.

Being 1 piece case, the weak point was the necked down section.
And this tool had been in my box for years and years.
Sometime we forget that tools do wear.