PRODUCT TRAINING
BY DAVID BRIERLEY,
MANAGING EDITOR
920-563-1622
David@VehicleServicePros.com
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Fastener frustrations
Extraction and removal tools can help make technicians’ jobs easier.
There are many complications technicians
run into when removing fasteners. Whether
they are screws, bolts or studs, fasteners
can become corroded, react with other materials
or simply become stuck from being overtightened.
When any of these occurs and a technician
attempts to remove the fastener, the task will often
prove impossible using common tools. The head of
a bolt could become stripped and rounded so that
a wrench or socket can’t get a grip on it. Or, a stud
could be seized in place and removing it by normal
means is unsuccessful. No matter the case, trapped
fasteners are a relatively common occurrence in
automotive shops, and tools that can offer a reliable
and quick solution would be seen as valuable to
any technician.
Rescuing trapped fasteners
One fastener issue that is particularly common in
areas of the country that receive snowfall — and
therefore road salt — is corroded hex head screws
and bolts. When these types of fasteners rust, two
things can happen: the fastener can become trapped,
or the head can become rounded, making it so that
a wrench or traditional socket will slip and not be
able to turn the fastener. In many cases, the former
leads to the latter.
“We see a lot of rounding, corrosion, rust on
these fasteners, which causes a traditional socket — a
6 point or 12 point socket — not to work at removing
that fastener,” says Jarrett Wolf, product manager at
GEARWRENCH. “This requires the technician to
find a solution to get the stuck fastener out.”
Current solutions
While there are solutions on the market today,
they are often difficult to use and may present
multiple drawbacks.
“Solutions that are out there today … require
technicians to take an extraction socket and literally
pound it onto a damaged fastener,” Wolf says. “A
lot of technicians are fearful of using a hammer or
mallet to pound on a fastener, because when you’re
using that you can hit something fragile, especially
when working in a tight confined space. You see
quite often that these extraction sockets are not just
used under the hood, but also inside the car under
28 Professional Distributor I September 2018 I VehicleServicePros.com
the dash or in other confined areas.”
When the fastener extractor is pounded onto
the head of the trapped fastener, it bites into the
metal of the fastener to allow the technician to
remove the stuck item. Each time the tool is used,
however, it is aggressively worn down, to the point
where it may need to be replaced frequently.
“That causes the socket to wear out quickly
and lose its gripping ability after a few cycles,”
Wolf says. “A common pain point is a user will say,
‘I’ve used this a couple dozen times and it’s already
useless to me.’”
Once the extractor tool has been pounded onto
the fastener and the fastener has been successfully
removed, the two are now stuck together, and the
technician has another job of getting them apart.
“Technicians would now have to either try to
pound out that fastener, or many times they were
even heat treating the socket, which damages the
integrity of the socket,” Wolf says. “So it created
more work.”
If and when the technician is eventually able to
get the tool and the fastener apart, they may find
that the damaged fastener is a specialty item, such
as an unusually long bolt, and a replacement part
needs to be ordered from the OE, slowing or delaying
the repair process.
A final issue technicians may have with current
extraction solutions is that when fastener heads get
corroded or stripped, they may wear down to a size
that traditional sockets won’t fit.
“Say you started out with a 14mm fastener,” Wolf
explains. “Over time that 14mm fastener has worn
down, so let’s say maybe it’s a 13.5mm now. With
a traditional extraction socket set, they might not
have a size that fits.”
Newer solutions, fewer problems
This sets the stage for tool dealers to introduce
alternative solutions to these problems that could
potentially present simpler resolutions. One such
tool is the GEARWRENCH Rescue Extraction Sockets.
These sockets, available in late 2018 or early
2019, present methods of extracting corroded or
damaged fasteners that differ from most of the tools
on the market today.
“Rather than being pounded onto the fastener, it
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