Two Tool Recommendations-- Life Savers

[-MIKE-]

Last week, I played mechanic and had to replace an oil pan gasket on our

99 Ford Taurus with 160k+ miles. This required the removal of the exhaust pipes from the manifold flanges. Anyone who's attempted this knows how rusty and brittle those manifold stud bolts and nuts can get. I've heard nightmare stories about them snapping, or cracking the manifold casting, etc.

Of course, on mine, the nuts were rusted half off and practically welded to the studs. After spraying with penetrating oil and letting sit, these things were just not moving, because they were rounded over and undersized from the rust.

So I picked up a set of these Irwin Bolt Extractors:

The 12mm stud bolts were long and actually too thick to fit through the hole in the bolt extractor, so I thought I had wasted my money. Then I decided to try something. The heads on these studs are actually rectangular.

took the smallest Irwin extractor, 5/16-8mm, and put it on that rectangular head, used my breaker bar with a pipe on the end, pulled hard on that bad boy from about 3 to 5 o'clock and then "POP!" and a small cloud of rust-dust poofed out from above the manifold. Sucker was loose! Did the same to the other stud bolt, which looked in worse shape than the first.

I had another 12mm head starter motor bolt that was rounded off and the proper sized Irwin extractor took it off like it was a wingnut.

Next, I had a couple 6mm machine screws (that hold the oil pan) with sheared off heads. You've all seen these on the TV infomercials...

I was skeptical, but the Grabit worked perfectly and took them both out without doing any damage to anything other than what it removed.

So two thumbs up for both of these products. WELL worth the money.

[SonomaProducts.com]

ar.http://info.rockauto.com/RB/kit03131-007.jpg>> I took the smallest Irwin extractor, 5/16-8mm, and put it on that

[-MIKE-]

No, but I love that Discovery channel show and enjoyed the coincidence of them being featured on this week's episode. :-)

FWIW, I bought the Grabits off the shelf of the local Ace store. :-)

[SonomaProducts.com]

Yeah, I saw parts of the "Pitchman" show and if I recall, the Grabits were actually failing to pay-off on the commercials. So maybe they belong on store shelves.

What I found > S> > Hey, you don't have dyed black hair and a dyed black beard and alwasy

[-MIKE-]

You need to show that to the guy from the other Discovery show, "Doing da Vinci," who refuses to use anything but a chain saw for everything. :-)

[Gerald Ross]

I discovered grabit a few years back when I had some SS square drive deck screws cam out just a little too far in to get them out with the vise-grips.

[Lew Hodgett]

Next time start with Kroil, hasn't failed me yet.

Lew

[-MIKE-]

I have the spray can. :-)

[Lee Michaels]

SPAMMER!!!!

Well, somebody had to do it.

Thanks Mike. That is the practical nuts and bolts stuff that is much appreciated here.

[-MIKE-]

Just want to make you aware of the ridiculously obvious pun you wrote, just in case it was an accident. :-p

[Lee Michaels]

I prefer to think of it as serendipity. ;-)

[evodawg]

Grabits work well, use them on stripped hinge screws all the time. I broke some in the head after trying to get my exhaust manifolds off. But my problem is I couldn't get a drill in to extract them. Have to pull the Heads to get to them. Which sucks big time.