Came across this interesting test comparing some of our favorites: Subject: Penetrating oils ........... Average torque load to loosen Penetrating Oils Machinist's Workshop magazine recently published some information on various penetrating oils that I found very interesting. Some of you might appreciate this. The magazine reports they tested penetrates for break out torque on rusted nuts. They are below, as forwarded by an ex-student and professional machinist. They arranged a subjective test of all the popular penetrates with the control being the torque required to remove the nut from a "scientifically rusted" environment. *Penetrating oils ........... Average torque load to loosen* No Oil used ................... 516 pounds WD-40 ..................... ... 238 pounds PB Blaster .................... 214 pounds Liquid Wrench ...............127 pounds Kano Kroil .................... 106 pounds ATF*-Acetone mix............53 pounds The ATF-Acetone mix is a "home brew" mix of 50 - 50 automatic transmission fluid and acetone. Note this "home brew" released bolts better than any commercial product in this one particular test. Our local machinist group mixed up a batch and we all now use it with equally good results. Note also that "Liquid Wrench" is almost as good as "Kroil" for about 20% of the price. Steve from Godwin-Singer says that ATF-Acetone mix is best, but you can also use ATF and lacquer thinner in a 50-50 mix. *ATF=Automatic Transmission Fluid
Hello Robert; VERY much appreciate you taking the time to post the results....GREAT when inexpensive "Home brews", outpreform the BIG $$$$ stuff...THANKS!!!!!...Mark
Interesting info. Not to be a spoil sport here.....but.... One has to wonder how multiple samples of rusted / seized fasteners can possibly be prepared such that their degree of corrosion / stiction is identical --- meaning that the range of how seized up they are would likely constitute a wide variability. So, if you can't start with the same initial conditions, how can you say precisely how much the break away torques were reduced by the different pentrants ? If this experiment were repeated over many trials (sets of similarly prepared fastener specimens), perhaps a pattern of consistently ordered relative values would indeed emerge....but, absent such data....it is pretty subjective to draw a true conclusion. On a side note, what units of measure are we talking here ??? [pounds] is not a measure of torque......so, I am assuming those values are supposed to be [inch-pounds] ???
I believe thats why it says 'average.' They probably set up 10ish samples per penetrant and take the average. There are proper statistical methods for determining the minimum sample size needed for statistical significance in a test like this, but the spread between penetrants appears large enough that it wouldn't need to be too high.
Robert , Thanks for posting that, very interesting and valuable! I personally like PB Blaster, find it works better than Kroil. I bought some ATF/Acetone mix, also worked well. Of course, preaching to the choir, we all know what WD-40 stands for? Water Displacement, formula # 40.
completely agree with you, however my experience has been that the 50-50 works best. the next good one, heat & wax, followed by heat and LN. of course it really depends on the reason for the seized fastener. yeah and vectors and scalars do confuse most
Of course but the OP is summarizing a summary. We hope the article take those issues into the equation. But put it this way. 50/50 might be 10x better than dry and 4x better than wd40. WD40 is 5 bucks a can, Kroil is more! 50/50 is pennies and anyone who does any car work has stray bottles of ATF and solvent around. I kinda like the ghetto nature of 50/50. I'll try it tomorow. And lets say it works half as good as this study that is still 5x better than dry and 2x as good as wd 40. I can live with that.
Interesting. In the gun world, there are many that swear by Ed's red for lube/cleaning, which is a mix of ATF, kerosene, mineral spirits, and acetone. I wonder if Ed's red would work as well or better than just the ATF/acetone mix alone. http://home.comcast.net/~dsmjd/tux/dsmjd/tech/eds_red.htm
Exactly. I would have to read the entire scientific article (if even scientific at all). I remain very skeptical. How even a lab could reproduce on a molecular level the same amount of rust on a bunch of rusty bolt "samples" is difficult to imagine. I smell a fish. Something stinks in Denmark.
Doesn't seem that hard to imagine. If it were me I would have a bunch of new steel studs affixed to a steel beam. Install nuts half way down the studs and dip the whole mess in some solution that would cause rust. Then test away.
http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/threads/27429-Please-confirm-MW-article-on-Penetrating-Oil/page2?highlight=penetrating+acetone+test This page of discussion from the magazines BBS contains source material and a comment from the original author of the article. What I've learned about the article in 5 minutes of googling is that he used power steering fluid, not ATF, and the test fixture was pins, not bolts, soaked in the test fluid for 8 hours; hence the measurement reported in force instead of torque.
I hope this 50/50 mix of ATF/Acetone will work to help break the bolts holding my cv's together. I'm at a loss as to how to break them loose. I've unloaded almost an entire can of this pb blaster with no luck. Has anyone tried to use a heat source to help break the cv bolts loose? Such as a butane torch?
The torch (or blue wrench) is my tool of next to last resort. My tool of last resort is to cut or drill the offending fastener. The torch usually works, but you don't want to use it where you would be burning off grease (ball joints, wheel bearings, etc...) unless you are replacing them. Ed's red is good stuff.
Well that is reasonable for exposed pieces of steel, of identical surface areas, that are not in any contact with each other. The trouble with threaded fasteners though, is that due to variability inherent in the thread conditions, there can be large difference in how much surface area is in close contact vs. exposed (sightly gapped) so the amount of rust developed will be affected ---- less rust in areas of tight contact, more in areas of looser contact. Clearance-fit pins are indeed better (than threaded fasteners) for consistency of contact area vs. exposed area, but still not greatly uniform. That does explain the units (of pounds) as the pins were likely then pulled straight out with no rotation applied.
I haven't used it yet, but I think you are supposed to try to avoid stocks, etc. I imagine the acetone wouldn't be too good.
Be careful using heat. I did something really dumb while working on the suspension of my Xterra. I attempted to remove a fastner, after several failed attempts, I sprayed it with a penetrating oil. The fastner was holding a bump stop onto the chassis tube. After repeated soakings of oil, and no luck, I decided to apply torch heat to it. I was smart enough to wipe off all of the oil before I heated it, I didn't want the oil to burn. However, I wasn't smart enough to predict that the oil carried itself into the chassis tube where I couldn't wipe it down before heating it. Well, as you might imagine, after I heated it, I was surprised with a nice FIRE inside my chassis tube!!! Thankfully I stayed calm and reacted quickly to grab my fire extinguisher, shoved it into one of the holes in my chassis tube and sprayed it down. I got very lucky that the fuel lines that were right there, didn't catch fire! The bad news (no such a big deal) was that my beautifully finished garage (looks like a showroom) was covered in the fire extinguisher powder, and it took me about an hour to clean everything up! Thankfully, it all ended well, no damage to anything, and I actually had to drill the fastner out to complete the job. Moral of the story: Don't do what I did! And always keep a nice fire extinguisher in your work area.
Kroil does work well. Lately we've been using Sea Foam deep creep with great results. Will have to try the 50/50 mix. Best works well on somethings better than others. And don't forget ATF is very flammable. Had some get into the heat shields of an exhaust once... Interesting road test...
PV, not hard to imagine if one assumes imagining a "bunch of new steel studs" is an adequate sample size. Then , try to get that published as a scientific evaluation. Maybe in some circles may be accepted, but as scientific- only as anecdotal evidence. First, youd have to subject a huge sample size to accomodate imperfections in minute scale on each bolt. Rust can form differently based on just that, and that has a skewing affect on your conclusion of torque values. By "a bunch", we can guess you mean say, 10-20 bolts. Buy Im talking about a thousand++. Thats how science is done. Do you know that when chemists derived data such as boiling points of substances, they repeated the test not twice, or 10X, but hundreds and huindreds of times before publishing! Then, one would repeat it using the other comparable oil/fluid. Its not as easy as one "imagines".
I've pulled wrenches on enough rusty crap over the yrs to agree with the article and not need a real in depth scientific approach, I'm not worried about it being peer reviewed and published proper fastener tq eludes most DIY's, repair shop guys & mechanics. a rusty bolt that was at the proper tq to start with tends to be easier to remove then one that was not. save for the bolt so rusty that it's now holier than thou, self righteous hardware, nothing more frustrating.
+1 for Kroil. We use it at work on aircraft Annual and 72 inspections for getting stuff loose. at home I use a 50/50 mix of kerosene and Marvel Mystery Oil on everything, cars, gun parts, house, ect. works great. Removes cosmoline and is not very easy to ignite if you add heat. MMO actually removes rust if allowed to sit. Does not seem to hurt any gun blue I have come across.
