Removing oven element - need a tiny box or tubular spanner say 5mm

buglawton

I was swapping an oven element and found that the nuts on oven back retaining the element are recessed and too tight to shift with pliers (not much clearance so have to use thin long nosed pliers). The alternative is to take the entire oven carcass apart which would involve disconnecting all the electrics from it.

The bolts appear to be 5mm ones. I searched online for tiny socket sets (though these may not even pass over the thread as there's a good 1 cm of thread on the bolts and also for tubular/box spanners. But these all seem to start at 6mm.

Anyone else found a solution to this sort of thing?

phoenix_w

A set of mini nut spinners are probably what you want, look in electronics shops like Maplin

Norman_Castle

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=5+mm+box+spanner&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=uJGyVMSpDcvvUo_vgKAK

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/390643181506?limghlpsr=true&hlpv=2&ops=true&viphx=1&hlpht=true&lpid=108&chn=ps&device=c&adtype=pla&crdt=0&ff3=1&ff11=ICEP3.0.0-L&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=108&ff19=0

Most sockets have a hole through the middle. The square drive may not fit fully but may still turn the socket. Can you borrow a socket set to try this?.

buglawton

Yes I did find some box spanners described as 5 x 5.5mm on eBay/Amazon around the £6 mark. Does the 5 mean a nut that's for a 5 mm dia nut from flat to flat surfaces? The 5.5 would then be the outer dia of the fattest/circular shaft?

Norman_Castle

Nuts are normally measured across the flats. Box spanners are normally different sizes at each end although a 1/2 mm difference seems tiny.

Cheaper one here. Try asking the company

http://www.my-tool-shed.co.uk/p8332

snowcat75

5.0mm wouldn't be very uncommon, but may be less common to buy individual. Individual sockets are normally more expensive than sets as the quality is generally higher, the 5.5mm would be the size and small metric nuts work in 0.5mm increments, the 5, may be the depth but its a strange way of referring to it, typically a socket would say something like 5.5mm on a 1/4 drive, it may also say deep, or standard, deep sockets being used for longer threads.


Any motor factor would have a little cheep set of 1/4 drive small sockets on the shelf, hex drive are better for small and tight nuts as point drives tend to round off nuts.

buglawton

Thanks all. My Tool Shed would've been £5.60 inc P&P - nearly used them but no Paypal available. Ended up with Ebay at £4.70, lets see if it solves the issue.