Wrenching on stuff, repairs, maintenance, tips and tricks

[Grnjp]

With good eye hand coordination , a chisel , and a hammer one can turn nuts

Also can be done to screws and broken bolts with a sharp and hard center punch.

 

[Altissimus]

Muir's story is a great one , the book is a masterpiece. Drawings included , who the hell ever thought old black and whites with arrows was the way to go for shop manuals , John knew a good drawing was superior .... he was turned down by something like seventeen major publishers. Self Published and sold millions of copies , translated to several languages as well.

 

[lxskllr]

It was readable too! Imagine that, a technical manual that's fun to read. I'd pay good money to have manuals like that for all my projects.

 

[Al Smith]

Never seeze is a mechanics best friend .It will only take one time of drilling out the socket head grade 8 bolts holding the knives in a brush chipper to prove my point .

 

[Grnjp]

Never seeze is a mechanics best friend .It will only take one time of drilling out the socket head grade 8 bolts holding the knives in a brush chipper to prove my point .

It's also a good way to end up looking like the tin man! Lol

 

[Cobleskill]

Love never-seize even if it does tend to make a mess.

Heat frozen bolts, nuts, brake bleeders to light red hot and quench with squirt water bottle. If it does not come loose do it again. Works like magic.

 

[Dave Shepard]

So many people don't know that. Or won't believe you. I use a hose or a five gallon bucket.

 

[Tree09]

That's a great way to crack stuff tho, especially cast iron. Heating it, then dabbing paraffin wax on it works very very well too and won't crack stuff from quenching it. Then make a 50/50 mix of atf and acetone in a mason jar with a cheap paint brush for dabbing it on and you'll never buy penetrating oil again. Using paint on threads is the old school trick for redneck locktite, works on pipe threads too, very similar to hard set.

 

[Cobleskill]

You don't heat up the caliper or wheel cylinder too much when you heat up the bleeder. I know how uneven heat can crack cast iron. You can shield the metal also.

I do have to try the atf mixture. I think I read a recipe that had kerosene in it also and maybe one other ingredient. Thrust made by Castle works well to get lubricate rusty stuff you are trying to get apart. Don't think it is that great of a penetrant.

 

[Al Smith]

Brake bleeders can be a real chore .Older cylinders are cast iron and the bleeder is carbon steel .If you try to heat them you take a chance of ruining the cups or setting them on fire . Sometimes a good rap or two with a brass hammer will knock them loose after you give them a good soaking with some type of penetrating oil .If you do get lucky enough to break them loose get out the never seeze to put it back together .

 

[Cobleskill]

Having the torch sideways and moving it around the bleeder I have not had any problems overheating cups. It doesn't take long to heat those pissant small bleeders up. That is part of the problem, especially on the brake cyl. vs. calipers, the bleeders are so small and hollow they break quite easily. Once you do a couple you won't try any other method. I usually stop and get new bleeders at my buds shop if they are eaten away much.

My full time mechanic bud uses this trick almost daily. He says it does not work on the jackass aluminum calipers. Great idea using dissimilar metals in the salt belt. Might as well weld them together.

 

[treebogan]

Buy an induction warmer.

 

[Bart]

Anti seizing bleeders, caliper pins etc could be considered routine maintenance if you want to be considerate to the poor SOB (you) that has to wrench on it in the future. Stainless nut and bolts on exhaust flanges. Again, that's if you're the poor SOB who has to deal with it next time round. When that time comes you'll be patting yourself on the back. Dielectric on electrical connectors. You'll notice good factory cars do this. Older ones, nope.

 

[Al Smith]

Another old trick is unsticking an engine with a grease gun . .Make an adapter for an engine from a spark plug and pump oil into the cylinder just make certain on a two cycle it's stuck above the ports .On a 4 cycle just make sure the valves are closed .The average grease gun puts out 5,000 PSI .It will come or bleed .

 

[Tree09]

That's brilliant! I've seen the pushing a stuck valve with string in the spark plug hole and then cranking the starter, but that's brilliant!

 

[BlackSmith]

Dad used the grease gun trick many times on different repairs. He showed me how to replace valve seals/springs with an air compressor to hold the valves closed. I thought that was slick.

 

[Bodean]

I was stumped on how to open this seized block then my friend Mike suggested a lag bolt for the giant bolt hole...

 

[cory]

.Make an adapter for an engine from a spark plug and pump oil into the cylinder

The trick sounds cool but how exactly would one adapt a spark plug to make a strong connection to a spark plug

 

[BlackSmith]

Break all the porcelain out of the plug, all you need is the threaded part, weld a female quick connector to it. Instant happy times.

 

[Tree09]

Cool deal, i had never heard of that one

 

[Bodean]

Youse guys are like space engineers...
Seriously tons of smart info here.

Ps. Edit. It greatly humbles me to come and read here.. also shows me the spectrum.

 

[Burnham]

As in...our spectrum on the autism scale represented by 'Housers is quite wide ?

Lots of skills here, no doubt about it.

 

[flushcut]

trick: Pavement Butter helps break the friction by the chipper making the tracks last longer. View attachment 110425

 

[Al Smith]

I've made the spark plug adaptors several ways ,brazed/welded or taping the metal part of the plug and using threaded pipe bushings to fit the tapped hole to the grease zerts .I've got several in both M 14 and M 18 sizes as well as some fitted for air lines .

 

[Al Smith]

That holding the valve trick with compressed air goes back to my teenaged years which were some time ago .I did use a wad of rope once on an old Ferguson tractor that broke a valve retainer .How it kept from swallowing the valve I'll never know .I had to turn a new retainer because something that was brand new in 1951 it's not like you can trot on down to Auto Zone and buy one.