I had to take some rusted locknuts and spring bolts off of an exhaust system that's seen a lot of salt in the north east, the car is roughly 8 years old and those nuts and bolts were untouched.
I bought a cheap MAPP/PRO torch from Bernzomatic, the TS8000 with the yellow MAPP/PRO fuel for $51.00 from Home Depot. While there I also picked up a universal extension hose I saw right above it, same company makes it for about $17.00.
I had my doubts since people claimed oxyacetylene was the only one that worked. The extension hose was crucial to working on my back in a weird angle. Without the torch, I could get nothing moving even with penetrating oil. Blasted with torch for about one minute until the flanges were glowing red and all of the rust was glowing bright and they were easily popped loose (squeaking the whole way of course). I could hear the exhaust components move as the metal expanded (the popping sounds you hear when a car is cooling down). I got every nut and bolt off with no fuss, nothing broken. For the ease of use and effort, time it saved me it was worth every single penny.
I noticed that until I cracked it loose there was no visible gap between the fastener and the threads, the rust had totally glued it together but after popping it loose I could see a gap. So I put the penetrating oil on after the torch, it makes the loosening part much easier than squeaking dry threads.
These were one of my best buys. If anyone is looking for heat but can't have an oxyacetylene setup these do work. But in my case I still had the heads on the nuts and bolts and was able to re-use all of them, even though I replaced the self-locking nuts since they're only one time use. If you have a setup where you have nothing but rusted stumps you'll probably need oxyacetylene to cut through and use new fasteners, this won't help you with that.
I bought a cheap MAPP/PRO torch from Bernzomatic, the TS8000 with the yellow MAPP/PRO fuel for $51.00 from Home Depot. While there I also picked up a universal extension hose I saw right above it, same company makes it for about $17.00.
I had my doubts since people claimed oxyacetylene was the only one that worked. The extension hose was crucial to working on my back in a weird angle. Without the torch, I could get nothing moving even with penetrating oil. Blasted with torch for about one minute until the flanges were glowing red and all of the rust was glowing bright and they were easily popped loose (squeaking the whole way of course). I could hear the exhaust components move as the metal expanded (the popping sounds you hear when a car is cooling down). I got every nut and bolt off with no fuss, nothing broken. For the ease of use and effort, time it saved me it was worth every single penny.
I noticed that until I cracked it loose there was no visible gap between the fastener and the threads, the rust had totally glued it together but after popping it loose I could see a gap. So I put the penetrating oil on after the torch, it makes the loosening part much easier than squeaking dry threads.
These were one of my best buys. If anyone is looking for heat but can't have an oxyacetylene setup these do work. But in my case I still had the heads on the nuts and bolts and was able to re-use all of them, even though I replaced the self-locking nuts since they're only one time use. If you have a setup where you have nothing but rusted stumps you'll probably need oxyacetylene to cut through and use new fasteners, this won't help you with that.