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Technical Removing seized small screws

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by goldmountain, Jun 18, 2020.

  1. goldmountain
    Joined: Jun 12, 2016
    Posts: 4,442

    goldmountain

    Back when I was building my frame, I made this little decorative plate around my Pitman arm and fastened it with 10-32 stainless screws. Of course, these things come apart every now and then in the building process and one of them seized and broke off flush with the surface. Now since this was strictly ornamental, I got around this by putting a helicoil in the decorative plate and just used a shorter screw. However, it bugged me.
    Yesterday, I am smoothing out the sides of my frame with body filler and while waiting for the hardener to kick off, I decided to fix it. I would weld a sheet metal piece to the broken stud to have something to grip on and turn it out. Since it is rather small and there isn't a lot of surface area to weld to, first I drilled a small hole in the middle of the stud. I drilled a 3/16" hole in my little plate since I didn't want to accidentally weld it to the frame and held it in place with masking tape. Not a lot of weight here. Poked my Mig wire in the center of the little hole I drilled and welded it up. Heated around the area with my torch and while it was still hot, attempted to unscrew it with vice grip pliers. Took me three tries and since with each attempt the stud kept getting shorter, did the last one from the backside and got it out. Incidentally, all the trim screws inside my T coupe were of the 10-32 persuasion and I managed to get them all out. IMG_1077.JPG IMG_1428.JPG
     
    ekimneirbo, GordonC, pitman and 2 others like this.
  2. 2OLD2FAST
    Joined: Feb 3, 2010
    Posts: 5,217

    2OLD2FAST
    Member
    from illinois

    Next time never seize is your friend !
     
    warbird1 and nunattax like this.
  3. squirrel
    Joined: Sep 23, 2004
    Posts: 55,942

    squirrel
    Member

    Next time, normal steel screws are your friend! :)

    although antiseize helps, too.

    Thanks for the tech tip, we need more of those around here
     
    F-ONE and thintin like this.
  4. pitman
    Joined: May 14, 2006
    Posts: 5,148

    pitman

    Good detail writeup, thanks.
     

  5. Dirk35
    Joined: Mar 8, 2001
    Posts: 2,067

    Dirk35
    Member

    Thanks for the tip.

    Anti-seize on anything Stainless or Aluminum. And with stainless, do NOT use a impact driver to speed things up when putting in a lot of screws (such as putting on all of your garnish mouldings), even with Anti-seize. I too, had to learn the hard way.
     
    fordflambe likes this.
  6. noboD
    Joined: Jan 29, 2004
    Posts: 8,459

    noboD
    Member

    NEVER ever use SS screws without Never Seize.
     

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