How do I unscrew and overtightened nut?

I have a lift and one of the nuts are overtightened and won’t come out. How do I unscrew it?

Confidence, elbow grease, and a wrench

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Allen wrench combined with that wrench too

if that doesn’t work, a #19 drill bit.

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When we tried to unscrew it with a wrench it deformed the nut. Not to the point where we can’t get the wrench around it but it still slightly bent parts of it.

When faced with an issue like this, I tend to use this image and follow it as if it were a flow chart.

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If you post a picture of the stuck joint, we could give you some specific advice.

However, there are general steps that could always help:

  • Put a small drip of WD-40 onto the treads and under the nut.
  • Use dremel to grind the sides of the nut, so that you could get a better grip with a smaller size wrench.
  • Grinding will also heat it up, which could loosen the connection.
  • Cut a slit into the screw head, so that you could get more torque with a flat screwdriver (over hex).
  • Just cut off the screw head or nut with a Dremel .
  • Finally, if all else fails, nuke it from the orbit - you may not get all your parts back, but your problem will evaporate.

Also, this thread has some good discussion on this topic: Stripped Collar

7 Likes

image

We ended up just removing the piece of metal because it was easier.

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