BY GEORGE LANTHIER

Over the years I ’ m quite sure you ’ ve run across the dreaded internal tankless or blank plate that has rusted and rotted out , Figure 1 , as did my friend Jeff Breault and so with some help from a few of my friends we ’ re going to look at some jobs . These were all posted on our private Facebook page Heating Tech Talk , and no we ’ re not looking for any more members , sorry . In this article , we ’ ll give you some ideas on how to clean it up and fix it . These suggestions will include old-school concepts as well as “ newschool ” techniques .

The internal tankless is still used by many of us and has been a mainstay with oilheat for over 70 years . Traditionally , most of us will use some sort of lubricant and try to soften up the nuts or bolts first . I used to leave a can of lubricant with the customer

Figure 1 and tell them to spray it once in the morning and evening and we ’ d hope for the best . If they worked with me and did it , I had an exceptionally good success rate . Then upon arrival back to the job a few well-placed hard hits from a hammer and we ’ d try to get them off .

Many years ago , I found another way . If the plate had a stud arrangement , I found

Figure 2 breaking the nuts off completely using a “ nutcracker ” aka a nut splitter , Figure 2 , could move things along quickly . The nutcracker can sometimes also cut the head off a bolt giving you some metal to work with . The nut crackers come in

Figure 3 different sizes and require just a wrench , some elbow grease and luck .

With studs I then clean them up with my electric drill that has a steel brush head installed , Figure 3 . In many cases things don ’ t go well , as I know you ’ ve probably found out . As

Figure 4

General Colin Powell once

said , “ No battle plan survives contact with the enemy ,” and our enemy is rust and deterioration with a hefty dose of neglect on someone ’ s part .

Another method involves the use of a grinder , Figure 4 , to cut off the nuts or bolts and get down to the cast-iron or steel boiler block . Once you ’ ve got down to the metal it ’ s now a matter of cutting those remaining bolts or studs to get the proper drill bit into the remains of the bolt or stud to allow the use of screw extractors , Figure 5 , normally requiring five steps . You can have some surprisingly good results with this method .

Using Figure 6 the fives steps are shown as :

A . Start with the broken remains of the stud or bolt .

B . Using the correct drill bit size drill into the remains of the stud or bolt .

C . Using a hammer tap the screw extractor into the drilled hole .

D . Place a tap holder , Figure 7 , onto the screw extractor . We ’ ll use that tap holder again later .

E . Remove the broken stud or bolt .

Figure 8 was a job done by Pat Royer of ckSmithSuperior of Worcester , Massachusetts . He used another method and in Pat ’ s own words : “ I used a four-inch angle grinder [ Figure 4 ] to cut off nuts / studs flush with plate , removed plate , heated remains of studs individually close to cherry red with MAPP gas torch , smacked stud with hammer , then quenched with a water-soaked rag . Most spun out using vise grips . Method seems to work about 80-90 % of the time .” My opinion is that you can ’ t beat it if it works , FACT !

Many tradesmen elect to go another way altogether using helicoils . Ken West of Loud Fuel

Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 7

Figure 8

38 JULY / AUGUST 2021 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www . fueloilnews . com