Nuts.

I broke an exhaust stud. In an idle moment I made a cardinal mistake. Never fit a small socket on the handle that comes with the set. It’s long enough to break anything under 13mm and it’ll mince 10mm without even trying. So now I have three more nuts to undo and a stud to extract. Trepidation. Put socket set away. Phone man who knows everything. Dave does. That’s what he does. He knows the doing of things. OK he supplements doing with books and knows theory but always starts and ends with doing. So Dave knows the real world of exhaust nuts, they’re a bugger. They spend their lives red hot one minute and wet through the next. Mine had lost a good millimetre to rust so spanners were useless. Enter trusty mole. Dave’s advice: Get a nice day, a cup of tea and a fag and just keep worrying them till they give in. Douse liberally with WD40.Get mole on and apply a reasonable force while hitting nut end with a hammer. More WD40. Once you’ve broken the bond just keep working it a bit at a time till it comes off. If that doesn’t work use a propane torch to get it real hot as well. Butane isn’t hot enough but don’t melt aluminium. What’s wonderful about Dave’s advice is it’s forged from practice and failure; it’s real, not theoretical. And it works. No amount of study holds the little details that make for success. There’s no book that says about the tea and fag and a nice day but they’re vital to be in the right frame of mind to be slow and gentle. None that talk about ‘worrying nuts till they give in’ but that says exactly how to approach it. So three nuts off successfully and now a broken stud to extract. Drill out and fit a thread insert. But that’s for another day. If only I hadn’t had that idle moment.