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MG MGA - Rusty nuts

Hey folks, I am in the process of removing the seats and floor boards from the '60 MGA. Last night it was 2 hours for 2 bolts. It seems that the heads strip right away which allows the rest of the bolt to spin. (I'd like to save the few cage nuts that are left, if possible).

Is anyone aware of a better methode to remove the darn things? I am afraid to use a torch as the wood is fairly oil soaked. The nuts have been sprayed with penitrating oil several times. Perhaps a saws-all to cut the wood around the seats? Thanks, Tom
Thomas McNamara

If you're going to replace the floor boards anyway then cut/chisel around the bolts to get the seats and floor boards out of your way. Buy some NEW drills (1/8" and 3/16" or 1/4"). Drill thru the bolts and then try to collapse the thread in. It will be tedious work, but the nuts are not cage nuts, they're welded to the frame. If the nuts get buggered up you have to remove/replace them, or use a nut/bolt combination when attaching the new floor boards. Removing the weld nuts can leave a big hole in the frame channels where they're attached.
Good Luck!
George
G Goeppner

I just went through the same frustration. What I ended up doing was removing the floorboards, as suggested, then I did one of 2 things. I either cut the top of the bolt off with the angle grinder flush to the frame and then used the vise grips to remove the bolt from the bottom, or if the bottom wasn't too rusted I cut the bottom piece off and and removed it
from the top(there weren't very many that I could do that to).
I remove the whole second half of the floor this way in about an hour.

Richard
R N Sanders

On my cars I cut off the bit of the bolt that extended below the caged/blind nut so as not to try and drag the rusted threads thru the nut. Then I heated the nut red hot and all the bolts came out and saved the caged/blind nuts. Have a good day!

John
John Progess

I used a saw hole drill to punch the area around the bolts and washers and then was easy to remove the floorboards, removing the floorboards first allows to work freely in the area, and then the usual WD40 and vicegrips to remove the bolts.
R Garcia

Just did this also. When all else failed, I cut the bolt shaft off flush on top and bottom and then carefully center punched and drilled out the old bolt and then re-tapped the nut. Had to do about six of them this way. Easy outs didn't work very well on this project - and this was my fall-back. Worked fine. On two I got lucky - when I went to drill out the old bolt, the drill bit actually spun the old piece out.
AJ Mail

100% success with the flame wrench, at least for those that were still in the car when I did it. Much quicker than drilling and re-tapping, and you can't beat the success rate of the flame wrench. Afterwards I chased the thread with a tap in a hand drill. I replaced any missing nuts with weldnuts. For those screws that were broken off already, heat the nut up and grab the bottom threads of the broken screw with a pair of pliers and unthread them out the bottom. I suppose you might just cut off the top side of the screw with a cutoff wheel and do them all out the bottom.
Chuck Schaefer

I agree with Chuck, my oxy-acetylene gets used more for undoing rusted nuts than it does for welding. I can honestly say that I have never had anything that wouldn't come undone after a bit of "warming". I like the expression "flame wrench" Chuck!
Lindsay Sampford


With mine, I drilled out the heads with a 1/4" bit--slow speed, keep the point oiled.
Use real penetrating oil--PB Blaster, Kroil--not WD-40.
Apply heat, then grab what's left with vise-grips from above or below. You can always wet the floorboatds if you're worried about fire, which I doubt is much of a risk anyway.
I ended up replacing the floorboards and the rails anyway, so the above was a waste of time. You may want to consider the same. If the screws are that rusted, are the 20-ga sheetmetal ledges going to be any better? They're what's holding you off the road, and they will remain exposed to road spray and salt.
John V.

John Vallely

I have used a product called Freeze & Release. It's a cold spray that drops the temperature of the nut and bolt allowing the threads to separate from the rust. I picked it up through a company called Fastenal. I believe they are a national company here's a link to their web site.....
www.fastenal.com.
and a link to the product....
http://www.fastenal.com/web/products/detail.ex?sku=0607066&ucst=t.

So now, depending on what part of the country you live in, you will literally be able to freeze your nuts off.

Norm
Normd55

Lindsay, unfortunately the only thing I have that is close to your oxy-acetylene setup is my MAPP torch, but it works very well for this application. Propane is just too light. By the way, a synonym for "Flame Wrench" is "Blue Wrench". You can interchange them. I'm sure you understand why.
Chuck Schaefer

Correction--I said 20 ga--I think they're 16. Still, I'd look closely at them.
JV
John Vallely

This thread was discussed between 12/11/2009 and 14/11/2009

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