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Old bolts...

M

mkirsch

Well-known Member
I've probably brought this up before, but it never ceases to amaze me...

My uncle had an old Little Genius plow in his woods that he was going to scrap, so we dragged it home.

The thing was almost literally sitting in a swamp. Two tires rotted completely off. Third tire so dry and petrified it was supporting the plow with no air.

We dragged it home and started working on it yesterday.

Would you believe the lug bolts all came apart with just a wrench?

What is it about those old bolts that they don't seize up? You couldn't even discern threads on the exposed parts of these bolts, but they spun right off as if brand new!
 
I'm disassembling a mower for my F-14 for restoration. Haven't broken a bolt yet except one or two that didn't look original. My brother restored a 1918 windmill. Bolts were all galvanized. Said he never broke one.
 
Along same line I often look around old country cemeteries and some of the above ground vaults that were actuall empty boxes have bee torn apart and the 200 year old metal bars that held corners are not rusted.
 
(quoted from post at 03:09:58 11/29/10) yea and you can even get the brake caliper bolts out of a 10 year old car????
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Even if you put never-seez on the bolts...

You'd think with all the advances in machine tolerances and metallurgy in the last 70 years, that they'd be able to come up with bolts that don't freeze in place after 6 months of exposure to the elements.
 

A few years ago I parted out a few plows that were just too far gone to save. 2 of those plows were IH Little genius #8s, and one of the plows was a John Deere of similar vintage. All 3 plows came from the same place, and were sitting side by side in a fence row. The 2 IH plows came apart easily. Not one bolt twisted off or stripped the threads. Not so with the John Deere. Every bolt on that plow either twisted off or I had to cut it loose with a torch.
 
Heat treatment, and grade of bolt, and the alowed amount of mill scale was controlled by IH to high standards. (Dot bolts are an example of the philosophy. That might be a factor in their remaining servicable. Jim
 
My neighbor had a Gravely ride behind garden tractor setting in her field for many many years. I helped her around her place after her husband past and she asked me to take all the "junk" out of her field, do whatever I wanted with it.
I sold the Gravely to a fellow who had a 5hr drive to pick it up.
He brought a small pkup that I said would not hold the tractor and attachments, he said it would, he would just take the handles and such off.
Well those nuts/bolts looked like were welded to each other with rust.
He took a pair of 8" channel locks and turned those nuts with absolutely no effort. I have found the same thing true on old equipment that hasn't been worked on in years, like plows, disks etc.
Yet things I have put together less than a year ago are so froze up I have to use heat to break them loose.
Dell
I just remembered that I told this story before, so obviously someone did bring it up.
 
Amazing, ain't it? I've got a pair of old JD 52 2-12's that I'm trying to combine into one usable unit. Any hardware that there was enough left of the nut to get a crescent wrench on (square nuts) came right loose.

Only exception was the big nut that holds the spring-loaded hitch eye, and all that needed was a little heat.
 
A guy once told me that rusted old bolts and nuts come apart easier than new ones because the old ones were virgin steel and the new ones are recycled rust from the factory.

I don't know if that's a bunch of bs or not, but I've had much more luck taking apart 50+ year old stuff than things less than 20 years old. Seems like I always twist the newer bolts off when an ugly older one seems to back off if I work the bolt or nuts back and forth a little bit.

AG
 
Maybe someone will correct me on this, but as I recall form metallurgy class a few years ago that this is due to "Galvanic Corrosion." What that means is the less noble material will corrode more heavily. Any time that dissimiliar materials come into contact this will happen. Also, if I"m not mistaken, aluminum (brake caliper) will expand more as it corrodes the steel will. Now, I never-seeze the crap out of things as I work on them and I have few problems. BUT I AM NOT SPARING with the never-seeze. It"s usually all over me and my hands when I"m done.
 
I too have experienced taking apart old farm machinery and those old square head bolts seem to come off no matter how old they are. I don't know this for fact, but I wonder if those old square head bolts had more clearance in the threads in addition to being non alloy low carbon steel. Roger
 
It's the lead content. Up until a few years ago, about 15 or so, steel used to have lead in it. The lead made for a more forgiving steel, easier to machine and form, and had a better finish.
 
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