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Tried the two-wrench trick on a frozen brake bleeder and it popped loose in about 40 seconds
I have a 2004 Cherokee in my bay at the shop in Mesa that has been fighting me on a rear bleeder for two visits now. My lead handed me the trick of locking one wrench on the bleeder and hooking a second wrench onto the first to double the leverage, and I figured it would just round the hex like everything else I'd tried. It broke free in maybe 40 seconds with almost no muscle, and the fluid ran clean on the second pump. I'd been heating and soaking that thing with penetrant for a solid hour before that, which now feels like wasted time. The lesson for me is that a lot of my stuck hardware issues are a torque problem and not a rust problem. What other leverage tricks do you guys keep in your box for the stubborn stuff?
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fionanguyen7d ago
Learned that same double wrench trick from an old timer and it saved my butt on a caliper bolt last winter. He called it the poor man's breaker bar and I laughed until I actually tried it. Key thing he showed me was to keep both wrenches flat against each other so the jaws lock up solid instead of slipping off the hex. I've also used a box end on the bleeder with a long combo wrench hooked into it for even more reach when there's no room to swing a big bar. Your point about it being a torque problem and not a rust problem is spot on, I've wasted way too many hours soaking stuff that just needed a longer arm. Going to try your heat plus soak routine first next time though, sounds like a good combo before reaching for the wrenches.
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