Rusty bolts

[oldcodger]

Found myself having to do a head gasket job on a 13 year old B&S Intek 500cc lawn mower engine. I have done these before and always the hard part is removing the bolts in the exhaust system. They are almost always rusted and frozen stuck. This time I decided to try the 50/50 mix of acetone and Dextron ATF. I applied it to the fasteners and let it sit over night. That stuff worked! The rust was softened and the bolts came out like they had just been assembled. It beat the heck out of Kroil and PB Blaster.

 

[GMBoy]

Good to hear but sometime we don't have overnight to wait to do a job.

 

[FT92]

used this for years . my uncle who was a machinist taught me although I use kerosene and atf,works better than anything else I've tried

 

[RDMgr]

used this for years . my uncle who was a machinist taught me although I use kerosene and atf,works better than anything else I've tried

The kerosene-ATF combination is really no different than other OTC penetrating oil, Most use a mineral oil based non-volatile portion with an odorless kerosene diluent. Solubility is essentially perfect and separation doesn't occur.

By using kerosene in place of acetone you loose the cooling effect from the rapid evaporation of the acetone. My opinion, replacing the ATF in the acetone blend with an oil that is soluble in acetone would be the perfect blend. This would be unadditized so it's just a penetrating oil. Anyone is welcome to try a blend of 60-65% acetone + QS100 olive oil or other fatty oil. I haven't tried it but these should be soluble with each other.

It would be an interesting project to compare the ATF blend and the lipid blend.