Rounded nuts and bolts like this can be incredibly difficult to remove. There are
a lot of variables when you do this. There are different grades of bolts some
of them may be rusted in, some of them may be thread locked in, so there are
quite a lot of different variables. Also the nut could have been rounded off by
somebody using a badly fitting spanner or it could have been rounded off
because it was just so tight. So there are quite a lot of variables this video
will hopefully help people out because I'm going to show you quite a few
techniques on how to remove a rounded bolt like that. I'll just show you how
bad this one is this is the open end of a combination spanner and you see if we
try and undo that it just won't grip at all because it has been so badly rounded off.
If we try the ring end absolutely no chance at all of that doing anything.
The one thing you should always try and do with a rounded off nut or
bolt, is to apply some spray penetrant such as WD-40. If you spray this on
there's a good chance that it will actually loosen the thread slightly and
that will give you the best chance of getting it out. Another option is to
apply some heat to the nut or the bolt using a blow torch. The heat can make the
bolt expand, when it contracts it can then loosen the bond between the bolt and
the threaded part or the nut.
The first thing that I reach for when I get a rounded off nut or bolt are the
grip tight sockets. I've actually had these for a couple of years and this is
the set that I have at home. I also have a set of these at work and you would
actually be surprised at how many people come to borrow these because they are
very useful, they do work and they can get you out of a lot of trouble. These
have hardened steel pins on the inside that actually grip on the flats of a
rounded off nut or bolt. Simply put the socket on the ratchet locate it on the
rounded off nut or bolt and then you can very easily undo that. You can
also try to grip the nut or the bolt with something that has a serrated
set of teeth on it, such as these stilson's,
often call a pipe wrench, mole grips or water pump pliers. Like I said there are
a lot of variables and in some cases you will not be able to do it using these.
Sometimes you're trying to work on machines that have moving parts and when
you try to get that rounded bolt off all you're going to do is move the
rounded part. So these will work in some instances. So we're going to have a go with the
mole grips. To do this you need to adjust them so that you get them as tight as
possible, and that is now very tight and if we try and undo that there is a
chance that we can undo this bolt. Once you have loosened it you can then remove the bolt.
We will now try the water pump pliers. The good thing about these is the length
of the handles, you do get quite a lot of leverage. And one of the best tools for
removing rounded off bolts and nuts is a pair of stilsons.
These are designed to grip round objects such as pipes etc with the serrated
teeth so they are very good at gripping objects that are round. Another avantage
of these is the length of them these are 18 inches long.
Simply put them on the bolt or the nut if you can get them on, simply press down
and you can see that that quickly and easily undid that bolt. You can also use a cold
chisel and a hammer this is a very good technique and you can generate a lot of
force with it that will undo the majority of
rounded-off nuts or bolts even if they've been in there for donkey years you
can still use this method. This is one of the best method to remove anything like
that, especially if it is stuck in there. Before we do this we're going to put a
pair of safety glasses on then got the cold chisel and a decent hammer. All we
need to do is take the chisel and get the point of it so it's on the top
of the bolt like so. You need to hit it so that it tries to spin the bolt out.
We're not trying to shear a piece off the bolt we are actually trying to move it
round. So we're going to put the chisel in a position like that then we're going
to give it a good crack using the hammer.
As you could see that then went, which has loosen it, and you can quite easily undo that.
I've not actually come across a bolt yet that will not undo using that method.
Another thing you can do is file a flat onto the bolt. You can see that we've got
the adjustable there if we try and undo that it simply slips around because there
are not flats on it. You can do this just by using a file you can then take the
file and you can start to file a flat on it.
Sometimes filing a flat on will
enable you to undo the nut or the bolt other times it won't work. In this
instance we've just been able to undo the bolt. One of the best ways of
removing a rounded bolt is to get a nut, preferably one that is actually larger
than the bolt head but if you can't get one you can simply weld on a nut like
so. You don't need to be a good welder to be able to do this all you need to do
is take a nut preferably a plain nut so that is not galvanized and it is
not zinc plated. This is a very simple technique simply take the nut, place it on
top of the bolt, we are then going to take a welding electrode and we're going to
weld in there. We're going to fill that up with molten metal. The heat generated
from the welding process can also help to loosen the bolt.
You can see that that is absolutely glowing red-hot and that should easily
enable us to remove the bolt in fact the heat generated has loosened that
considerably. Another advantage of using the welder is you can remove things like
this. That is a counter sunk bolt and the center has been rounded off so the allen
key will not grip in that at all. All we need to do is take a nut, again you need
a plain nut not a coated one, put that over the top we will just tap that in with
the welder, fill that up with weld and we should easily be able to remove that.
We can then grip that with a pair of mole gripes or a suitable spanner and then we
can easily remove the counter sunk bolt.
So that's it, I think I've just about covered every technique there that I
often use on site. I do hope this video has been helpful if it has and you
haven't done so already please subscribe to the channel.