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Living in Minnesota, an area with highly salted roads, I’ve had a lot of experience with rusty bolts on cars. Not so much lately, as we now see a lot more bolts with that golden anti-corrosion plating, but in days of old my 68 Mustang, almost every bolt was very solidly rusted stuck.
Anyway, it’s the custom here to use a lot of Liquid Wrench on these nasty rusty nuts and bolts.
But thinking back, I don’t recall seeing ANY improvement on breaking these joints free that I can attribute to Liquid Wrench. Now once it’s been broken free, yes, the oily graphity stuff does help the rest of the unscrewing.
Also logically, when the bolt is stuck tight with rust LR doesn’t seem to do anything to break up or loosen the rust, so how could it be helping? Maybe it isn’t.
I realize this is carzy-talk in some circles, but I have to bring it up.
Opinions welcome.
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I’ve always had a habit of using PB Blaster. As a penetrating oil, I don’t think it will make much of a difference if the reason a nut is super tight with rust so much that the stud and nut have nearly fused. In that case the oil will not penetrate past the fused point unless allowed to saturate and hopefully break down the oxidation. I have sprayed studs in front of the bad nut, taken the nut off, and seen oil residue at the base of the stud, even on studs that are upside down. Bolts are more difficult because the oil has to try to get under the head of the bolt first not to mention then try to work down the threads. It won’t work in every situation.
Or you could just say it’s a placebo tool. Maybe it would have been that much more difficult to loosen something or maybe it would have been exactly the same.
Liquid Wrench does seem kinda watery compared to PB though…
P.B. Blaster is what I use and for me it works great, I have heard good things about one called Deep Creep, and using ATF mixed with Acetone.
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