Are nut splitters any good?

If the nut wiggles at all you need some penetrating oil like Kroil, the nut will come right off after a little soaking.

Guess I could. To be honest I wasn't quite sure if it was turning or if I was just burring the nut.

Chris

This is a great application for a little import air hammer. A cold chisel with a hammer will work too, but an air hammer will fly through 1/4" bolts. I took off about 600 once from a truck bed, took about an hour.

GWE

Christ> Hi,

"Christopher Tidy" wrote: (clip) Any suggestions would be much appreciated. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is not an answer to your direct question, but an alternate crude method. My experience is that a 1/4" thread that is rusted will shear off, if you turn the nut. Since you say that a "mole wrench" slips, I suggest holding the nut with a pair of Vise Grips, adjusted VERY tight.

What is a mole wrench?

Mole was the company who first made Vise Grips in the UK. They're the same thing. I adjusted them tight but still couldn't get a firm grip.

Chris

I've used a nut splitter and I think they work great. Mine was a Craftsman. Nuts come apart and you just pick up the pieces.

Steve.

Yup, and an air hammer helps in a lot of other situations too.

Lane

Teach me something please. Are the heads of all Whitworth 1/4" bolts the same size so that you can get by calling the wrench which fits them a

I too have had a Craftsman nut splitter similar in design to the one you showed us for about 40 years and it's worked great the few times I have been able to get it over the nut. Most of the time there's something interfering with it going where it needs to go.

Is there enough room to chop the bolt heads off with a chisel or an angle grinder?

Jeff

I use a thincut wheel on a grinder to split stuborn nuts and have not had to purchase a nut splitter. The splitters I had a chance to try always hit an obstruction. Steve Peterson

Cutting torches are more fun. If you're good you can cut a rusty nut off of a car without touching the sheet metal underneath. If you think you're good you can do it 4 times out of 5.

Wanna buy some fenders for a '48 chevy? Some of the bolt holes are a wee bit elongated...

Nutsplitters are cheap and work great. Mine has swivel heads so it will get into almost any awkward location. Bugs

I bought one of those when I spun a lug nut after a blowout on the boat trailer in Lake Charles, LA on a run from Michigan to Texas. The nuts were so malleable it just sort of mushed a v in the nut, then the nut splitter broke. It took my sons and I about two hours with a 2 lb. machinist's hammer and cold chisels to knock that damned nut off. After that, we had to drive around and find a tire store and a boat shop with boat trailer studs, but we finally got back on the road after spending the night there.

Pete Keillor

Yes. Whitworth spanners are specified by the diameter of the bolt, not the measurement across the flats. Confusing at first, but you get used to it.

A chisel, maybe, but not an angle grinder. Also, this thing is about 8 ft off the ground and I thought a nut splitter was one of the safer tools I could be using while standing on a ladder.

Chris

The one time I used my nut splitter was to remove that back nut from a VW engine to remove it. It did the job and none of my other toys would do it. Karl

Thanks to everyone for the useful information. I'm tempted to buy a nut splitter as it looks like a good solution to this problem. The nuts certainly aren't too hard, access is okay, and I'm reluctant to try chiselling or shearing off the bolts while I'm at the top of a ladder.

I reckon I'd use a nut splitter quite a lot for working on old machinery, but the Facom set is on the expensive side. I've had some pretty bad experiences with cheapo tools in the past, usually caused by trying to save a few pounds on the cost of a decent tool. I bought an adjustable wrench, then the following year had to go out and buy a better one as there was too much slack in it and I kept damaging nuts. I bought a beam-type gear puller but it took about 20 minutes to adjust the diameter as the design was so bad. Luckily I took that one back and exchanged it for one which takes about 10 seconds to adjust, for £8 more. So what do you think? Should I go for el-cheapo or will it break? It seems to me that a nut splitter takes a pretty high load. The Facom sets also have the parts available as spares, which is useful.

Chris

Ive been a mechanic in the oil fields, to a mechanic in machine shops..and for what its worth..Id not skimp on quality of a nut splitter. As you say..they take a pretty high load. Ive got a SnapOn splitter which I was fortunate enough to find at a yard sale for $1.00 (suprising how few people actually know what they are) and in the past 15 yrs or so..Ive used it exactly 2 times. As others have pointed out...obstructions are often in the way, and alternatives such as a dremal tool and cutoff blade in conjunction with a fine bladed cold chisel are about the most commonly done (for me)

Gunner