Seat Belt Bolts

One of the projects I had given Larry was to see what can be done about the seat belt bolts. Those damn things were frozen solid and as I've previously blogged about, I'd tried even a propane torch to loosen them up. He made two suggestions: the first was we needed a 1/2 inch breaker-bar and the second was we get a 6-sided 13/16ths socket, rather than the 12-sided one I had. The 12-sided socket tends to round the edges of the bolt heads and a 6-side one would grip more of the bolt. I zipped down to Auto Zone and they had several length breaker-bars, and I went for the longest one (24-inches) having already done battle with the bolts and lost.

The bolts actually protrude through the floor pan and are open and accessible underneath. Larry had got under the car and scrubbed 39 years of grim, dirt and rust off of the visible parts of the bolts. He then shot some PB Penetrant Catalyst on them and let them sit overnight. The next morning he was able to spin 3 of the bolts fairly easily. The last one was a pain, but would spin about 1/4 revolution and stop. Larry sprayed some more penetrant on the bolt, wait 20 minutes, spin it another 1/4 revolution and it would stop. After a few iterations of 1/4 revolutions, it finally let loose and came out.