250F increase causes roughly .0015/1 expansion in CRS. A tiny bit of space will help to wick in penetrant.

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'82 300SD - 361K mi - "Blue"

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."

listen, look, .........and duck.

Brian,

On bolts I try to heat the material around the threads to expand it and break the bond. On nuts I heat the nuts to expand them. If nut still won't come off, I just cut the nut with the acetylene torch and replace the nut. This is always better than breaking off the stud or bolt the nut was on.

P E H

P.E.Haiges is correct those little propane torch's you get a Sears are not very good. Useing a butane canister helps a bit, but an acetylene torch is the best. You want to make what you are heating up red hot.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

The MAPP gas in the yellow cylinders is 44% Methyl Acetylene-Propadiene. The other 56% is liquified petroleum.
It burns a lot hotter than regular propane. I never had any issues with this gas getting hot enough. I've used it to braze 1" copper pipe. Try that with propane!

I've only ever used acetylene rigs to melt bolts off. If I was exagerating it was only a little when I said you run the risk of melting the bolts. Besides how many people have acetylene rigs?

Danny

__________________
1984 300SD Turbo Diesel 150,000 miles

OBK member #23

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I would tend to agree that acetylene is probably the best in this situation, but in most circumstances propane (or MAPP) will certainly get the job done. For the average user, propane torches are much simpler and probably safer to use anyway.

__________________
Keep everything as simple as possible-but no simpler--Albert Einstein