My riding mower has a broken housing...arrrgh. I finally got the deck off and the nut cracked on the spindle and it revealed that I need a new spindle as well as the housing. This will have to wait until Monday as the stores are closed until then. I have three nuts that simply will not crack that held the housing on. I left them overnight with WD 40 and used a torch on them and they still won't break. Do you think if I wd 40 them for a week then torch them that it may do the trick?

Also, I was wondering if I can sharpen the blades on a regular bench grey wheel? I mow a lot of rocks!

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@yahoo.com), November 21, 2001

Answers

Hi Doreen Unforunatly bolts are steel and the housing is Alum. and the two dont mix well they will seize up. Some times you have to apply presure that will break the bolt and replace them with new ones. And yes you can sharpen blades with ta bench grinder grey wheel. Just becareful and wear safety glasses. dale

-- dale (dgarr@fidnet.com), November 21, 2001.

You might soak the bolts in automatic transmission fluid, sometimes it works sometimes it does not.

-- Ed Copp (edcopp@yahoo.com), November 21, 2001.

If you are going to replace the nut and the bolt the easiest way to remove the stubborn nut is to use an electric drill and drill the bolt out of the nut. For example, if the bolt is 1/4" then use a drill of that size or even a little larger and drill into the end of the bolt as if you are redrilling the hole in the nut, did I explain that clearly? I like this method as it avoids damaging other components which is what I usually do if I pick up a hammer.

If you are using a torch remember that alloy expands at about twice the rate of steel so heating the surrounding deck will have a different effect to just heating the nut/bolt, I am assuming that the bolts or studs are are tapped into the deck?

I hope I have been some help.

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), November 22, 2001.

Are you turning the correct way? Aside from that I would just drill them out, spend the $1 and get a new bolt/nut.

-- Gary (gws@columbus.rr.com), November 22, 2001.

Doreen, it sounds like you do a lot of torching and hammering bolts at you place. You must not have "cheater bars?"

One 18" and one 3' can handle about any job you'll run into anywhere. These are iron or steel pipes that fit over your wrench handle that gives you the extra leverage to break a bolt. For us little girls in the truck shop, the cheater bar is the great equalizer. Not a job I couldn't do given enough leverage.

-- Laura (LadybugWrangler@hotmail.com), November 22, 2001.