Penetrating Oil

[BudP]

This is from the website Practical Machinist:

A study done by Machinist's Workshop magazine in their April 2007 issue looked at different penetrating oils to see which one did the best job of removing a rusted bolt by measuring the pounds of torque required to loosen the bolt once treated. If the study was scientifically accurate, it turns out a home brew works best!
Here's the summary of the test results:

Penetrating oil ..... Average load

None ...................... 516 pounds
WD-40 ................... 238 pounds
PB Blaster .............. 214 pounds
Liquid Wrench ...... 127 pounds
Kano Kroil ............. 106 pounds
ATF-Acetone mix....53 pounds

[JDupuis]

Very interesting and informative. Pardon my ignorance, but where do you buy acetone?
And what % would it be mixed at? Jeff

[Big hammer]

Hardware store in the paint section mix 50-50 as I have read

[JDupuis]

Thanks Big H.

[BudP]

Yup-50/50 is the ratio. Thanks Big H!

[pAAt]

I get my ATF free from a friend who works on tranny's. Very impressed with this mixture and the results.

[Terry, NJ]

In the paint dept at Lowes. Just mix a little more than you think you'll need.
Terry

[CM2]

Been using all kinds of weasel piss over the last 40 years,this is the best,hands down

[carolinamudwalker]

That is all I used on my boat in a tuff salt water environment.

[Brian in Wheeling]

I could never get ATF and acetone to mix...always seperates. Must be doin somethin wrong!
Brian Boundup

[Afordman31]

I didn't have the best of luck with that either!

[WMWS]

yes you have to shake it up good but it really works

[2manycars]

I found it difficult to get them to mix and stay mixed long enough to be appllied.

[Mike V. Florida]

I could never get ATF and acetone to mix...always seperates. Must be doin somethin wrong!
Brian Boundup

While all ATF will separate from the Acetone, some seem to stay mixed longer. I read, for example, that DEXIII will not stay mixed for more than a moment but DEXII will.

[Kevin in NJ]

All these fasteners come apart without the fluid. The problem is when a fastener is stuck and the voids are filled with oxidized materials. The fluid can NOT penetrate. Places like engine studs are a good example. I put penetrating fluid, Kroil, on the studs of a normal A block for a week. By normal I mean an engine that was used as a pump for a while and obviously stored protected its whole life.

My brother brought over his fancy stud tools. He is a mechanic and learned stud removal as a teenager buying flat heads at the junk yards and taking them apart to rebuild them. As a professional mechanic he has done thousands of studs. He looked at the studs and pointed out the ones that will break no matter what we do and the ones that will come out easy. So the studs that came out, NONE had penetrating fluid on the threads helping. The ones he knew would break, broke.
When I did the TIG nut method of broken stud removal you are supposed to put penetrating oil on while it it cooling down. Forgot on one and it did not budge. The oil was all over the threads and made a difference.

The take away.

If the fastener is fully oxidized in place, you will not get penetrating oil in to help. Basic laws of physics.
On tough partially oxidized fasteners clearly the fluid will help.
Heat cycles or mechanical (beating the crap out of them) can break free tough fasteners with a lot of oxidation. Steel in aluminum is still going to be a royal PIA.

A final comment.
You can tell the studs that will break based on the amount of erosion at the level of the deck. If you look at the studs edge on you will find some are reduced at the deck level. If they are eroded far enough the will break there.

[Ray in La Mesa]

Home Depot carries acetone.

[Captndan]

That was 10+ years ago. Ive’d used them all. Now I use Sea Foam penetrating fluid. Never failed.

[H. L. Chauvin]

POSTED THIS A FEW DAYS AGO UNDER MR. BEAUFORD'S "KING PIN" SUBJECT

"Glass Jar" .......... after shaking every now and then, after some time, it will finally stay mixed:

Steel and iron are porous; and believe it or not, old "solid" rust is porous.

Old tight and dense compacted "porous" rust requires a special fluid to penetrate it.

Only few want to try this vintage, old time Mechanic-In-A-Can rust penetrating remedy; i.e., mixture of 1/2 Automatic Transmission Fluid + 1/2 Acetone in a "Glass Jar", but it works if applied often and allowed to soak for a few days.

The Glass Jar is often necessary to "see" that this mixture is "thoroughly" mixed prior to applying same. Sometimes some ATF's & some Acetone's do not want to mix; hence, one has to shake the jar immediately prior to application to "see" that one has this uniformly Pink colored vintage solution.

This homemade mix works when one can see it is Pink.

Hope this helps.

[BILL WILLIAMSON]

ATF is a GREAT LUBRICANT!---Common sense tells me that mixed 50/50, with ACETONE, it thins it enough to WICK into & around threads & penetrates INTO the PORUS Rust.
Bill W.

[Beauford]

IT unlocked my 1st engine. Two day soak. Amazing! Only wish I had something that would have encapsulated the king pin spindle....

[DaWizard]

Beauford, you can always make a Play-Doe bowl around the top of the kingpin and pour it into the bowl.

[CM2]

Try MMO with the acetone instead of Dex, get a higher naptha content..ATF and MMO are closer than cousins..

[CarlG]

I always thought that the claims for Kroil were only so much "snake oil" claims. That is until one day at a hardware store there was a display of Kroil at the checkout. I impulsively picked up a can. It has made a believer out of me.

[Dennis]

Old thread but I found myself without penetrating oil while working on a members exhaust manifold. Marvel Air Tool Oil. This stuff is made by Marvel Oil Company Inc. makers of world famous Marvel Mystery Oil. Now i’ll Have to look for this or another brand. The Marvel works great. I’m now curious how Mystery oil works. Almost forgot I tig welded up the ends of the broken bolts before I oiled them.

[JDupuis]

Removes gummy deposits.
Same a MMO

[Mitch]

Does it smell like MMO?

[Dennis]

Mitch, I'm gonna do the smell test right now. The color is different. Air tool oil has a brown tint to it, not pretty red like MMO.

[Aretino]

Mouse Milk used in aviation maintenance. Also use Phillips Milk of Magnesia on turbine engine ignitor threads as antisieze.

[Dennis]

I've never heard of Mouse Milk and I'll bet the extraction process is something else to witness. All out of Milk of Magnesia and it's on my grocery list.

[Dennis]

Response to Mitch from post #14.2

The Marvel Air Tool Oil in the bottom left has a stain appearance while the MMO has that pretty red color. MATO has a odor to it while the MMO has a better smell we all know or recognize. I don't know where I aquired the can of MATO but I remember having it for a long time now. Maybe the odor is a result of the aging process....:rolling

[canadian]

Only last weekend I had the joy of removing a exhaust manifold on a 08 F150, total mess of a job , I soaked the crap out of the nuts and studs with PB Blaster, I couldn't believe that all the nuts came off, no breakage, had to use every socket from 12mm 13mm 1/2 inch anything that I could hammer on. these Fords are notorious for cracking manifolds but the PB certainly worked for me ....this time

[Mitch]

You hit the manifold lottery on that one

[canadian]

modern day engineering marvel. and as Dennis said in post #18. Plugs .. 2 or 3 threads holding a plug in a head..

[Dennis]

Cracked manifolds and blown out spark plugs.