The Impossible Bolt

HELP!

I'm stuck, fucked, and out of luck. Maybe one of you has some ideas?



I've hit it with everything I can think of:
700 ft-lb impact gun
Breaker bar
Breaker bar + 4' pipe
Air chisel
MAPP gas torch
Homebrew penetrant (4:1 acetone : ATF) (best bolt breaker ever!)
Cooked in 600⁰F oven for an hour
Welded socket
Welded rebar
Welded rebar + 4' pipe
Plus 3# sledge hammer and 6# deadblow hammer added to most of those

After the oven I did get the other stuck bolt out. But this one just isn't budging at all.

I'm hesitant to throw my acetylene torch at it for fear of too much pinpoint heat. The MIG welding was stressful enough!

 

Heat helps so it's good you've got that, along with hitting the top of it multiple times to "break" it loose.

But most importantly I would use a large nut to weld to the top and use a large breaker bar on said nut.

Rebar won't compare to a breaker bar.

 

You WANT the high heat of oxy/acetylene if you have it available. Hit it on the edge of the bolt head and the heat difference should help it pop. Just be quick

 

Yeah, I knew the rebar wasn't going to do anything by itself. Is why I used a 4' pipe on it, notched to fit real tight over the weld and bolt head.

 

Turns out what makes the difference is welding a NUT on it, and not a SOCKET.

The socket didn't work, despite multiple attempts.

I found an old castle nut, tacked it on using the notches, then just weld-filled the fuck out of the bolt hole. Brilliant orange when I got to the top, then water spritz to keep as much heat out of the housing and gear as I could. Impact gun, and it was off like Seabiscuit.

Not sure if it was the nut, or the heat from filling the nut hole. But I sure am glad that's done! Been working on this since LAST Saturday!

The fucker still hasn't cooled down from the oven......

 

The real question is...how are you planning on reusing that bolt?

It should be used to fasten the wall hanger for your six-pounder.

 

You mig welded that nut on the bolt head, right? The heat transfer from that is really what allows you to get it loose in my opinion. We had some large allen head bolts onthe commuter trains that always rounded out because of rust seized threads, mig weld a large nut on the bolt and hit it with a 1/2 inch impact gun!

 

Those ring gear bolts are a bastard because of how little height the hex has on them. I sensed right away the possibility of rounding them off, so what I did was grind away the chamfered inside edge of an old socket so that the biting corners of the socket could engage the hex better. This worked like a charm.

I don't have the socket handy at the moment, but here's a nutdriver I also did the same thing to for the same reason (the one on the left):