Hot take: some bolts just need to be cut off from the start

I spent a whole Saturday fighting a rusted bolt on my Jeep's control arm. Two hours of PB Blaster, a torch, breaker bar, and nothing moved. I finally cut it off with a grinder in like 10 minutes. So here's the debate: do you struggle and try to save the old hardware, or do you just go straight to the angle grinder when something feels stuck? I'm leaning toward cutting sooner after that. But sometimes you gotta save that original nut or bracket, right? How long do you guys fight a bolt before you say forget it and grab the cutoff wheel? I feel like I wasted 5 hours total that day when I could have been done in one.

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2 Comments

brianm273mo ago

Cut the damn thing and move on. The real time waste is fighting it.

7

blair_lewis853mo ago

Honestly, sometimes cutting a bolt saves your knuckles from getting busted up worse.

3