Breaking free rusted joints, the USCG way!
I have
seen quite a bit of talk about using liquid wrench or WD40 to
break free rusted bolts or tower
sections. If that doesn't do the
trick,
let me recommend a trick we use at
work that always does the trick....
I work at
a boiler plant at the USCG "boot camp" in
often have bolts or pipe fittings
that need to be broken free that are so
"stuck" that even
doubling up wrenches or breaker bars won't help. We heat
up the joint and once it gets hot
touch some parafin wax against it. The
heat melts the wax and wicks it
into the joint. The combination of
the
heat and wax makes it possible to
break it free, and it has never failed us
even with 4" pipe unions that
are 20 years old.
It may be
difficult and dangerous to do this up a tower, but with a
small propane torch I'm sure it can
be done safetly.
Of course with rusted
U bolts it is probably easier to just break off the nuts and
replace them...
Hope this can help someone....
73, Dave N2NL