With all of the handy DIY upgrades available at 4WD Supacentre, you are more than likely considering a few refreshing installations with gear like a new exhaust system, a set of rear drawers or even a suspension upgrade!

But if you’ve ever driven your 4WD offroad, or even the previous owner has, chances are that all the fasteners on your vehicle will more than likely have some level of rust or corrosion helping to hold them in place!

Rust forms because if many different situations which can range from salt water, corrosive minerals in mud, and even from situations such as just being dirty from road grime and rain water, or different metals such as high carbon steel and zinc coatings being present in the same location.

When tackling upgrades, you are more than likely going to hit a few nuts and bolts that will hold you up in your upgrade!

Where rust forms!
The way that rust forms on a nut and bolt, is slightly technical, but to simplify the explanation. When a bolt is tightened, the thread portion of the bolt is stretched a small amount an engineer could elaborate more than us, but the fact of the matter is when the threads have stretched, there is more pressure on one side of the thread than the other. This microscopic gap in the threads means that moisture and corrosive chemicals (salt or other minerals) could wick their way up in between the threads and cause chemical reactions with the metal and eventually seizing the nut or bolt seemingly permanently in place on your trusty 4WD!

Penetrating Spray

If you are new to turning wrenches, you may not instinctively resort to pulling out a can of penetrant oil to break a nut free, and if this is the case, you will be surprised at the effectiveness of certain penetrating sprays at breaking stuck nuts and bolts free from their permanent tomb on your vehicle!

There are some golden rules in making sure that penetrant oils become one of your best friends on the tracks, the first rule is to use plenty of spray, you must now wait a while, if you are installing an exhaust system or something similar, it’s a good idea to drown all the fasteners in a good dose of penetrant oil the night before the easy D.I.Y. install on the weekend, this will allow the penetrant plenty of time to find its way deep inside the labyrinth of screw threads and lubricate the metal on metal corrosion to a point where it can easily break loose.

Once the thread breaks it’s stiction and chemical bond breaks free allowing the nut, bolt or screw to break free!

A Tool for every job

When the going gets tough It is very important to make sure that you use the appropriate tool, for the job. When a lot of force is required to break the nut free, the hex head is more than likely weakened by the rust and because of that the likelihood of rounding the corners of the nut making it even harder to remove.

When getting really held up by a stuck nut, by taking advantage of a ring spanner or socket – or in the case of a screw exactly the correct shape and size of the fastener. By fully engaging all surfaces of the nut, screw or bolt you have a greater ability to get more torque on the head of the nut or bolt or screw giving you super human like strength at getting your stuck fasteners free.

As tempting as it may be to bust out your locking style pliers to “grip” or “Clamp” the fasteners head, this is one of the fastest ways to destroy the head of the bolt!

If in peril, you can even try a size down of tool such as an 11mm spanner on a 12mm nut, this will bind extremely tight on a rounded nut and help you to gain extra purchase. Or in the case of a screw you can use a larger screwdriver to gain better purchase!

Shock Treatment

Whilst a fastener is designed, to be tightened or loosened by a specific tool, like a spanner or screwdriver, by engaging in “SHOCK TREATMENT” you can bust the rust loose and free the fastener quickly!

This is easily done by wrapping the head of the fastener with a hammer like the hammers included in the Adventure Kings Tool Kits, this jolt drives the bound side of the fastener loose!

Be gentle with rusty fasteners, as they are fragile and a sharp hit with a hammer can cause damage making it harder to loosen with the right tools!

Working the threads
This method of freeing a fastener requires tightening and loosening the fastener, you’d be surprised how easily a stuck bolt comes free after you tighten it by a little, this opens and cleans some of the threads and allows you to gain additional momentum on the threads, this simple trick can break free some of the most seized fasteners you’ve ever seen.

By trying to tighten the nut you can clear up some of the rusted fastener to make removal much easier!

Thermal treatment

By taking into account the expansion and contraction of metals we can bust loose any rust on thread by simply heating up or cooling down the fasteners or the metal they are set into!

This works by letting the fastener wriggle itself free.

By hitting the surrounding area of bolt with some heat from a propane torch, or even an oxy acetylene blow torch can allow the threads to simply be undone.

Alternatively, you can use a can of compressed air, and simply invert the can to allow liquid compressed oxygen to spray all over the fasteners this has the effect of rapid cooling “shrinking the part”.

Using heat to expand the general area and then freezing the fastener, you will find the fastener to be unwound with plenty of space on either side of the thread.

A Bigger kind of hammer!
Stubborn bolts or bolts where all other methods of removal have failed require “a much bigger hammer” requiring the head of the bolt to be completely removed, via cold chisel, angle grinder or your oxy-acetylene torch with a cutting head.

By cutting the head off the bolt, you can free the stuck parts and take removal of the stuck threads as an after job. Sometimes the heat of cutting the head free will break the rust free allowing you to simply unwind the threaded shaft from the hole!

The old saying goes “when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail” rings very true with stuck bolts, and now being equipped with more tools to break your stuck fasteners free, you will be able to install more upgrades to your 4WD.

From upgraded Domin8r Exhaust Kits to a set of durable Titan Rear Drawers, or a full suspension upgrade from RAW 4X4.

Ounce of prevention

When you are fitting your new accessories, there is a handy compound you can apply to your threads to prevent them corroding and binding up. By purchasing a container of “anti-seize” you introduce a layer of anti-corrosion to your threads, this means when you need to undo your fasteners down the line, for instance, when you want to install a Domin8r Muffler Delete Kit the job takes a few minutes instead of a couple of hours, trying to figure out how to loosen stuck fasteners!

Get Cracking

Now you have all your pro tips for loosening tough fasteners, you can get cracking on all of those top value 4WD upgrades, and make your 4WD one that all your mates envy, when you and the convoy hit the toughest tracks you can find!