Rusty Bowtie
General Category => Early Chevy/GM Discussion => Topic started by: Senior31 on April 10, 2018, 08:35:15 AM
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Okay fellas I have a small issue. I have decided to swap out the headlights on my '35 standard, but I am having a small issue with the headlight nut. When I built the car I purchased new stanchions (headlight bars) to mount ford headlights on the car, but now I want to run a set of Chevy truck headlights.
When I dug up the old original headlights for the car one of the stanchions was still attached to the bucket. Of course the acorn nut is rusted solid. After a day or two of soaking it in PB blaster I tried to loosen the nut with no luck. The carriage bolt is just spinning in the bucket and the head of the bolt is not accessible. I have tried wedging a pry bar in between the bucket and stanchion and hitting it with an impact with no luck. I am to the point now were I need to drill our the factory rivets on the bottom of the buck or cut off the acorn nut. I wanted to check here first to see if anyone has any tricks before I start drilling and/or cutting. If anyone has any suggestions it would be appreciate it. Thanks!
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I have always just ground off the rivets to get theis problem done. And a nice set of nuts and bolts to put it back together, plus with the new nut and bolts it gives you a good secure point for the ground wire.
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Wish I had a better solution, but I don't....Did you try heat?
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Anyway to give us a picture to work with?
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Thanks for all the replies. I did try heating up the nut, but I couldn't get it hot enough with just MAPP gas. I am going to go to my Dad's in a couple weeks and I will try the oxy/acletylene set he has. He has in the past he has been able to get the nut hot enough to just pull off without damaging the stanchion. I will give that a shot and will let you know if that works. Otherwise, I am going to grind the rivets as Ghost recommended.
Sorry Ed I don't have a picture right now. It will try to get one in the next couple of days. Thanks for all the comments.
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Remember seeing a demo where the rusty nut was heated until red then a piece of wax was placed on it. After the smoke cleared the nut came off..I assume the wax penetrated the threads.
Last year my neighbor couldn't get lug nuts off his Suburban, we heated them until cherry red and they still wouldn't spin (air gun). Then we tried getting them red hot again and throwing cold water on them... they spun right off :o
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believe I had this problem partially before. I would zip cut the nut off from the head light bar.
To get to the rest of it still attached inside the headlight pot, drill out the rivets and separate the bottom mounting plate from head light pot.
Those carriage bolts are strictly automotive and diff square head design than the ones you see at home depot . They are smaller or larger ??? in the head. You should be able to use a larger square head design and file down the square and also belt sander on the edges of the head to reduce size so fits down snug. If you cannot find the automotive ones
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I would use a button head allen head instead in its place and pre-tighten it.
I would also use 10/32 button head allen heads to replace the rivets with nylocks.
I have collected a pair of original 34-35 chev standard head lights to replace the Guide sealed beams I installed in early 70s. Might have to take them apart as I described here.
Finally got the password to work again, so am back
mike lynch
mike lynch