Association Forum - OT rant: you try to do the right thing...

Assn Members Area · Join

Home.

Association Forum

Ships Store

Cruising

Racing

Technical Tips

Photo Gallery - New

Boat Search - Updated

Manuals & Brochures

Swap Meet

Links

Officer Flag Line & Staff

Bylaws & Constitution

Members Area

Join the Association

Notice:
The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.

Association Forum

Username:	Password:
Save Password
Forgot your Password?

All Forums

Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

General Sailing Forum

OT rant: you try to do the right thing...

New Topic

Topic Locked

Printer Friendly

Author

Topic

delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

Member Avatar

USA
4479 Posts

Initially Posted - 04/20/2008 : 18:32:25

So earlier in the weekend I had a guy over to look at my San Juan 21 that I've been trying to sell for about a year & a half. He seems pretty interested, just has to convince the distaff side of the family. I'd noticed that the tires on the trailer had cracks in them and I didn't feel that I could sell it to him in good conscience like that.

Fast forward through three days of snow, hail, sleet, etc to this afternoon when it's chilly out, but sunny. A couple of hours ago I decided I'd go take the wheels off the trailer, throw them in the back of my truck, and stop by the tire place tomorrow afternoon on my way home & pick up a decent set of used tires, something to sooth my bout of conscience. All five of the lug nuts were a bit rusty, but nothing dramatic, I sprayed on rust busting stuff and let it sit for a while, then went & broke all ten of them loose. So far so good. I start out on the right side of the trailer & get four out of five nuts off with only minor grunting, nothing to write home to mom about. Then with only about 2/3 of the thread remaining, the last nut froze. I backed it off a bit, gave it another good squirt of rust stuff (can't remember what it's called), then proceed to crank it off again. It start moving, gets pretty tight again, and then, spins freely, I figure I'm home free. Wrong. It spun the bolt. So I spent the next hour & a half trying to undo this nut & bolt combo. The radius of the rim prevents getting a large set of visegrips on the back of the bolt, so I tried with two pairs of smaller ones, no joy. I tried peening the head of the bolt back in place with a punch & ball pein hammer, I tried heating the bolt up to expand it, I tried cursing at it, nothing. Finally I gave up, what I need is a smoke wrench, but I don't own one, and I'm not sure what to do next. I think I can probably tow the boat somewhere if I have to (and at some point, someone has to), and I'm sure the guys at the tire place have a good solution for this, but I'm at a loss. I can't get a nut breaker on the lug nut because the rim's in the way, I could probably saw through it with patience, but a torch would be through it in a minute. I wonder if any of my neighbors have a portable torch setup?

Grrrr....

What I really wanted to be doing was finishing up the wiring for my radio, GPS & autopilot.

David
C-250 Mainsheet Editor

Sirius Lepak
1997 C-250 WK TR #271 --Seattle area Port Captain --

Edited by - on

ClamBeach
Master Marine Consultant

Members Avatar

3072 Posts

Response Posted - 04/20/2008 : 19:08:23

Can you get at it with an angle grinder?

EVERYONE should have an angle grinder.
Life without an angle grinder... well... just hardly ain't worth livin'.

Edited by - on

John Russell
Master Marine Consultant

Members Avatar

USA
3444 Posts

Response Posted - 04/20/2008 : 19:18:34

Go to your friendly neighborhood tool store and tell the guy you want a [url="http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_34573_34573"]nut splitter[/url]. You're gonna need to replace the bolt and nut anyway. Here's a [url="http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00971034000P?vName=Tools&cName=MechanicsTools&sName=Automotive%20Specialty%20Tools&psid=FROOGLE01&sid=IDx20070921x00003a"]different kind[/url]

Edited by - on

britinusa
Web Editor

Members Avatar

USA
5404 Posts

Response Posted - 04/20/2008 : 19:19:36

Dremel with lots of cutting discs (my answer for any bolt that thinks it can outsmart my wrench set!)

Paul

Edited by - on

delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

Members Avatar

USA
4479 Posts

Response Posted - 04/20/2008 : 19:49:50

That's what I like about this forum, all I really wanted to do was whine, and now I've got good ideas on how to get this fixed. I've got an angle grinder, but I doubt it'll fit in there, maybe. I've also got the Dremel, which may be my best option.

Edited by - on

OLarryR
Master Marine Consultant

Members Avatar

USA
3466 Posts

Response Posted - 04/20/2008 : 22:47:47

I have gone the Dremel route a number of times for frozen nuts. It always turns out to be one of the sink faucets in the house - a bathroom sink faucet or the kitchen sink faucet. I think I used the carbide or diamond wheel cutter - zip, zip, zip and the nut was sheared in two.

Edited by - on

stampeder
Master Marine Consultant

Members Avatar

1608 Posts

Response Posted - 04/21/2008 : 10:23:44

Since you've got your answer already, and you've had your rant. When I was in high school, I had a '56 Dodge sedan. The time came when I wanted to sell it - because the wheels kept falling off. So a pal and I welded all four wheels right onto the brake drums.
Being honest farm boys, we told everyone what we did. But of course the car didn't sell.
So we decided to bag the car, we only paid $50 for it originally so one of the things we did was take a hammer and nail and pounded holes in the muffler to give it a real good 'race car' sound. Then we proceeded to race up and down main street in our dusty little town, trying to rip the tires off at every corner. And that was when we found our buyers, a couple of local goofs (dumber than even us) bought the car because as the muffler blew apart it sounded very cool and because the tires were hot, the squeeled pretty good.
my advice, weld the rims to the trailer - it worked for me.

Edited by - on

Turk
Admiral

Members Avatar

USA
736 Posts

Response Posted - 04/21/2008 : 10:33:23

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by John Russell
 Go to your friendly neighborhood tool store and tell the guy you want a [url="http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_34573_34573"]nut splitter[/url].
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I thought this was the beginning of a joke! Ouch!

Edited by - on

delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

Members Avatar

USA
4479 Posts

Response Posted - 04/21/2008 : 22:48:35

So, about 10 minutes and two cutting discs with the Dremel and the bolt was toast. The wheels are in the back of the truck, ready for some cheapo replacement tires tomorrow.

Edited by - on

Topic

New Topic

Topic Locked

Printer Friendly

Jump To:

Association Forum

Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.