Pro tip: use a heat gun on a stuck alternator bolt

I had a 2005 Civic sitting in my driveway with a dead alternator for 3 months. Tried PB Blaster, breaker bar, even a 4 foot pipe. Nothing moved. Then a guy at AutoZone in Austin told me to hit the bolt with a heat gun for 2 minutes. Came right off with a normal ratchet. Anyone else spent way too long wrestling with rusted bolts before trying heat?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jenny13d ago

Bought my buddy's old Tacoma off him after he moved to Colorado. It had a seized lower control arm bolt from living in salt country. He spent two weekends with torches, a pickle fork, and a lot of colorful language. The damn thing would not budge one bit. He finally gave up and took it to this little garage down the street. The guy there hit it with a heat gun for maybe three minutes, tapped it with a hammer, and it slid right out. My buddy said he almost cried from pure frustration. Now I keep a heat gun in my truck for exactly this kind of nonsense.

-1

simons2813d ago

Respectfully, I gotta push back a little on the heat gun being the magic fix here. Sometimes that heat trick works because the bolt hasn't fully seized through, just has surface rust. But if the thing was truly stuck for two weekends, a heat gun usually isn't going to do much against a bolt that's basically welded in place by years of road salt. More likely that little garage guy just had a better feel for the job, maybe used some penetrating oil that actually worked, or had a slightly different angle with the hammer. Don't get me wrong, a heat gun is handy for lots of stuff, but calling it the answer to a seized bolt in a salt belt truck feels like giving a bandaid more credit than it deserves. Wouldn't it be something if it really were that easy though?