Don't know if anyone is familiar with this trick--I wasn't--and it may not apply to some of the much larger stuff you might find on a locomotive, but it might be useful anyway.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ba2_1475277076

That is a neat trick, not burning your thumbs looks like the hardest part to master!

Yeah I am thinking a BBQ lighter would be better but I am gonna have to try that one.

Neat trick, will have to try it next time.

Funniest part, he is barefoot while working in his shop! Don't think many of us would do that.

I thought that's what torches were for?

The comments beneath the video point out the reality: There's no way a lighter is going to give a stuck lug enough heat to expand enough to make a difference.

I've had to use propane and even acetylene torches to take REALLY rusty nuts off of bolts--think the connections on the exhaust pipes under your car.

I just had a tire repaired on my car yesterday. The mechanic got a tip from me for using the impact wrench at its lowest setting just to get the nuts on and then hand-tightening them down firmly. Of course, I had already put a touch of lithium grease on the studs last year when I worked on the brakes......

This isn't using heat to loosen the bolt, but to suck the wax in. The wax then functions as penetrating oil. That said, unless the lighter/candle method works a lot better than a shot of Kroil, he is making an easy task harder.

Dope it with transmission fluid/acetone and wait a few minutes.
Big nuts, like on a locomotive always surrendered to me if I took a torch and heated one side of it and quickly put a wrench on it. The heat would deform it just enough before the stud got hot that it would break loose.
If you're going to do it the next day, dope it with Kroil.

We've got a set of streetcar trucks for our 1912 Huntington car that we're already beginning to clean up. The car itself is a ways down on the restoration list, but we're already applying penetrating oil to the nuts and bolts on a regular basis, as the trucks are stored indoors now and the surfaces have been cleaned.

I'm not unhappy to have yet another tool to try in my toolkit. Never argue with learning about another way to get a job done.

I have heard of this before, but never tried it. The concept looks sound, but there are two types of rust:

Rust from being exposed to elements.
Rust that has been accelerated due to salt, etc.
Those of us who live in the north where they dump tons of salt on the roads know that the rust created by that is a whole different animal.

I will have to try this trick and see how it works.

without seeing the video, its holding the lighter under the bolt, holding the candle above, melting the wax above the bolt so the wax liquid seeps into the threads.

I showed the video to a professional mechanic friend of mine. He laughed and laughed.

Until someone comes back and tells us this trick actually worked, ignore this video as the same category of joke as the guy who sends the apprentice to get the "left-handed crescent wrench" or the "board stretcher." (Yes, both have actually been done.)

It seems sound enough. Don't know why your mechanic friend would laugh and laugh. I'm looking forward to an opportunity to try this out.

All I can say is that he must be using a wickedly hot lighter... or he doesn't show the part where he pre-heats that big mass of cold metal with a torch.

:-)

Steve Hunter