Reply To: How to’s

[Don]

Honestly, I have never had any success with “soaking” corroded fasteners in oil/penetrating lube on salt water engines with stuck fasteners A hammer drill with power setting is a good place to start, but it will probably take some preheating to help the process along. That being said, one needs to be super careful not to snap off fasteners. Heat/rock/repeat along with patience usually gets the job done….But, sometimes, even the most patient attempts end up with snapped off fasteners… It is important to remember that oftentimes it is not the actual threads that are stuck, it is the unthreaded shank above the threads. Sometimes, I opt to “waste a part” in order to free up the seized shank…An example might be air chiseling an aluminum impeller housing to split it apart to free up the frozen fastener shank.. Other examples might be an inner exhaust tube or outer exhaust cover housing… Wasting a part is much better than having to deal with a broken off 10-24SS screw broken off even with the gearcase housing, which is already a thin casting. Seeing engines that have been previously worked on, without even a drop of grease/sealant on the threads aggravates the crap out of me…I’m not talking about fresh water engines previously serviced on lakes…I laugh when I watch guys put a little dab of grease on a few threads of a fastener also, with nothing on the unthreaded shank of the bolt/screw. Yeah, perhaps I am a bit anal about this, but I’m sure that guys that had to work on engines I had prior dealings with never complain. My boss used to really get upset when I would partially disassemble new engines in order to lube them up properly prior to rigging/sale, “who’s going to pay for this time” he would say. And I suppose he was right to some extent…I’m sure customer’s never appreciated having a “greasy” new engine until years later when it came apart easy for service, or the steering cable didn’t get froze up in the tilt tube in a year’s time..