How to get rusted-up bolts/screws free with restricted access - help!

greyteam1959

Try using a box spanner.

Mr.Generous

I've had this exact problem several times, I basically gripped them with a mole wrench on the nut, wiggled the bolts back and too a few times using the mole wrench and they snapped just above the nut so came straight out.

Because they were so rusted they snapped very easily on both occasions. I had tried everything to get them turning and like you say - no way jose.

ripofflondon

Hi again all

Thank you SO much for rallying around as you did.  This was one of those situations that unfolded and, at the end, you say to yourself 'if I'd known xyz at the outset then I'd have called someone to do it'.  10-12 hours all told across the weekend with skinned knuckles, cut fingers, broken drill bits and enough swearing to turn the air blue. 

I eventually went with the drilling-out solution involving a 2mm pilot hole followed by a 6mm.  One worked reasonably ok but the other went badly off-centre and i had to resort at the end to snapping the remainder of the screw-head away with pliers and a mole-wrench, luckily enough of it having been drilled away by that time. 

And then on Saturday evening, just at the 11th hour when I thought it was sorted, I found out the hard way it wasn't.  Silly me thinking 'no need to put any of that silicone stuff in like the previous people did - surely the rubber washers that came with the replacement valve assembly will be watertight, won't they?'

WRONG!

So I had to get silicone then go back there on Sunday to partially dismantle the toilet and put some silicone in to seal it properly.  This should have taken 30 mins-1hr at most.  But guess what?  While unscrewing one of the 2 coupling bolts, the wing nut fell off and vanished into the space under the toilet bowl and trying to retrieve it took me another 2-3 hrs. 

Last issue - the fill valve is a Fluidmaster bottom entry one with a brass shank, attached by a brass bolt to a braided flexible hose running up into it from the isolator. As you can imagine, access to it is extremely tight - pretty much like this  and so I couldn't get a spanner or mole-wrench in there, only do the brass bolt up finger-tight and hope that the washer in the bolt stops it leaking.  Which it seems to have done so far but I'm not happy about it.  But - with the flexible hose running up into it, I can't get a box-spanner in there either.  

Any suggestions? 

Ganga

Can you get the correct size spanner and cut in half to give you access to the nut.
By the way did you buy a good quality replacement coupling for the tank too the pan ? stainless steel or plastic so you do not get the same problem again.

Mr.Generous

Thanks for updating, might be useful to others.

ThisIsWeird

ripofflondon said:

Hi again all

Thank you SO much for rallying around as you did.  This was one of those situations that unfolded and, at the end, you say to yourself 'if I'd known xyz at the outset then I'd have called someone to do it'.  10-12 hours all told across the weekend with skinned knuckles, cut fingers, broken drill bits and enough swearing to turn the air blue. 

I eventually went with the drilling-out solution involving a 2mm pilot hole followed by a 6mm.  One worked reasonably ok but the other went badly off-centre and i had to resort at the end to snapping the remainder of the screw-head away with pliers and a mole-wrench, luckily enough of it having been drilled away by that time. 

And then on Saturday evening, just at the 11th hour when I thought it was sorted, I found out the hard way it wasn't.  Silly me thinking 'no need to put any of that silicone stuff in like the previous people did - surely the rubber washers that came with the replacement valve assembly will be watertight, won't they?'

WRONG!

So I had to get silicone then go back there on Sunday to partially dismantle the toilet and put some silicone in to seal it properly.  This should have taken 30 mins-1hr at most.  But guess what?  While unscrewing one of the 2 coupling bolts, the wing nut fell off and vanished into the space under the toilet bowl and trying to retrieve it took me another 2-3 hrs. 

Last issue - the fill valve is a Fluidmaster bottom entry one with a brass shank, attached by a brass bolt to a braided flexible hose running up into it from the isolator. As you can imagine, access to it is extremely tight - pretty much like this  and so I couldn't get a spanner or mole-wrench in there, only do the brass bolt up finger-tight and hope that the washer in the bolt stops it leaking.  Which it seems to have done so far but I'm not happy about it.  But - with the flexible hose running up into it, I can't get a box-spanner in there either.  

Any suggestions? 

Need a wider shot to show your new issue. 

ripofflondon

All - many thanks for the further suggestions, esp the hacksaw and grease ones.  

I was loth to buy a basin wrench (or any tool) for a single use but luckily got lent one.  But even then the access was bl00dy tight - would have been better off with the Temu tool!  Why DO they design these things like this - I thought the air-suspended Citroens I used to drive were bad enough! 

Kind regards, Mark 

FreeBear

ripofflondon said:  Why DO they design these things like this - I thought the air-suspended Citroens I used to drive were bad enough! 

Wait until you need to change the headlight bulb on a Renault Megane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixsfhr8Nfbc

https://renault-repairs.com/change-headlight-bulbs-megane-2/