Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Penetrating Oils

Another Old Gasser sent me this information, and I thought I'd share it with the rest of you.--------

Machinist's Workshop magazine recently published some information on various penetrating oils that I found very interesting. Some of you might appreciate this. The magazine reports they tested penetrates for break out torque on rusted nuts. They are below, as forwarded by an ex-student and professional machinist. They arranged a subjective test of all the popular penetrates with the control being the torque required to remove the nut from a "scientifically rusted" environment.
*Penetrating oils ........... Average torque load to loosen*
No Oil used ................... 516 pounds
WD-40 ..................... ... 238 pounds
PB Blaster .................... 214 pounds
Liquid Wrench ...............127 pounds
Kano Kroil .................... 106 pounds
ATF*-Acetone mix......... 53 pounds
The ATF-Acetone mix is a "home brew" mix of 50 - 50 automatic transmission fluid and acetone. Note this "home brew" released bolts better than any commercial product in this one particular test. Our local machinist group mixed up a batch and we all now use it with equally good results. Note also that "Liquid Wrench" is almost as good as "Kroil" for about 20% of the price. Steve from Godwin-Singer says that ATF-Acetone mix is best, but you can also use ATF and lacquer thinner in a 50-50 mix. *ATF=Automatic Transmission Fluid

Thanks Kevin!

Thanks Kevin. I will put away the WD40 and get the ATF/Acetone mix going. To late for Johnny on the short 39 as he has used the sawzall for his sticky widget.

Always used kroil ever since using it at the refineries in northern Alberta, good stuff. But I will try the ATF mixture next time. Good info.

These numbers in that chart are pretty interesting.

Folks before you get all excited... The Machinist's Workshop article is from 2007... Numerous websites and magazines have run their own trials/experiments...I haven't found one yet, where those that commented had the same results as in Machinist's Workshop magazine...

In fact there was a person who claimed to have written the Machinist's Workshop article and he said that there was a misprint in the magazine and the correct mixture is Power Steering Fluid/Acetone not ATF/Acetone....

Again, I haven't seen even one website that got the same results... Or even close to the same results....

I tried it on the Mustangs... We went back to Kroil....

Thx. very useful. I swear by Liquid wrench but will be experimenting with your ATF mix.

Out here in the real world, we have been known to substitute ATF for PS and visa-verse. I'm not sure the difference in using lacquer thinner rather than acetone. On its own, acetone evaporates very quickly and cuts resins more effectively than thinner.