I was replacing the wear plate on my tractor snow blade. The carriage bolts were slipping. Here is a quick fix.
The problem
I was replacing the wear plate on my tractor snow blade after about 15 years of service. The wear plate is connected to the blade with a half dozen carriage bolts.
Years of salt, corrosion and rust made the nuts difficult to remove. Once I started loosening them, the carriage bolt would slip in the square hole.
The Solution – Clamp it down
The solution was to use a metal bar over the carriage bolt heads. I used a pair of vise grips that I clamped down as tight as I could. I also used plenty of penetrating oil and heated it up with MAPP gas.
The clamping action kept the square head of the carriage bolt firmly in the square hole. Note that in the image above we have the plow body as the top layer. The wear plate is in the middle. The bottom piece is some bar stock I had handy.
Results
That proved easier than using a nut splitter or grinder to remove the nuts.