Step Down Rear Bumper

Hudsonrules

:rolleyes: I would like to know what is the best way to remove the rear bumper on a stepdown without breaking the bolts. The nuts are ussually rusted to the point of breaking the bolts under presure. Thanks in advance. Arnie M.

[Deleted User]

same as with every other rusted out bolt you ever find, wire brush the exposed thread, lube it up and work it like you are tapping a thread from new. good luck

hudsonguy

Hudsonrules wrote:

:rolleyes: I would like to know what is the best way to remove the rear bumper on a stepdown without breaking the bolts. The nuts are ussually rusted to the point of breaking the bolts under presure. Thanks in advance. Arnie M.

I've had great luck in the past when dealing with old rusty fasteners, to use not only a good penetrating oil, but also air pressure. After wire brushing as best you can, use an old rag to kind of seal off all but the tip of the air nozzle and force the oil down into the threads.

Unknown

Kroil works good, I've found PB Blaster works best and costs a fraction of Kroil. WD 40 smells good but on the really tough ones, it just doesn't do the job. All my opinion, of course from personal experience working on rusty old cars.

Unknown

Heat the nut with a torch and it will break loose.



Barry

MikeWA

I've also had good luck with a "nutcracker"- a gizmo that surrounds the nut, and has a wrench-operated chisel point that you screw down into the flat of the nut until it splits. You can damage the threads of the bolt if you actually split it, but usually it deforms it enough that you can get penetrant in and unscrew it before actually splitting the nut.

Unknown

barry wrote:

Heat the nut with a torch and it will break loose.



Barry

That's guaranteed to work everytime, even if the nut is rounded or rusting away.

[Deleted User]

I just got through last week replacing a vertical bumper guard on the rear bumper of my Pacemaker. Sure enough, the old one was pretty well rusted on as the nut and screw from the guard were rusted together. Nonetheless, I used a combination of WD-40, tapping with a small chisle to work the rust loose between the nut and bolt and a small wire brush to clean the exposed threads beyond the nut. This all worked together to eventually work the nut loose with nothing being stripped in the end. It took several days to let the penetrating WD-40 do it's part, tapping again, wire brushing the bolt and working the nut back a little and then forward (all the while saturating the two pieces with more WD-40 over and over again). It all sounds a little "nutty"- HA!, but if you take your time and you should be able to work those nuts loose from you bumper.



(from a Hudson nut)