I have a frozen bolt on my patio. I’ve tried using liquid wrench several times and various heads with both a handle and a socket wrench but it won’t budge.
The main issue is a phillips head is chewing it up and a regular head doesn’t offer the same grip.
So my question is–is there a head that actually looks just like this (forgive that this one is also a bit chewed up)?
I want the strength of the flat head with the stability of the phillips. Since it’s embedded in the concrete of my patio floor to hold down the shutter track, I don’t want to have to drill it out. Last year I had to just put the track over the top of it but the resulting warp made the shutter extremely difficult to close.
Doing some looking it’s technically a slotted Phillips or a Phillips slotted combination screw. It’s not a full slot, it’s tapered like the Philips portion. Apparently not terribly popular. I might suggest a square drive (Robertson) or torxs, that would avoid the cam out issue and they are available in a wide variety materials and sizes.
I have a long row of these across the floor of my patio that I use to secure the shutter tracks when storms come. These aren’t concrete screws as you can see, they set into metal that was sunk into the concrete. I haven’t touched them in over 6 months so quite a few were frozen but all eventually budged except for one.
For reasons unbeknownst to me, but beknownst to them, the shutter installers used all different length screws/holes along the track so some are 2x longer than others, making it imperative to keep them matched with their correct hole. I am concerned if I drill it out I won’t be able to get one of the correct length to replace it. Too short and it won’t even engage the threads in the hole, too long and of course it sticks up and you can’t close the shutters and trip on it when there’s no track installed.
I suppose worst case scenario better to have nothing there than one stuck that warps the track over it.
On a related note, one of the other ones had nothing in it for a short period of time and, of course, it filled with wet dirt and now I can’t get anything into it. Not sure if I should try pressure washing into the hole or maybe a drill bit (but then of course I worry about touching/damaging the threads) as it’s too wet and tightly packed for air to blow it out.
If I understand correctly, the shutter track is removed normally, and only when you install it do you need to unscrew these from the concrete and use them to affix the track? The metal that is set in the concrete is specific to each bolt, or it’s one giant piece they all go into? If it’s the former, that sounds like they just set nuts or similar which is really shoddy work.
I would try and loosen the crud with water and a bit of wire (e.g. straigtened out paper clip) and then blow it out using air… use eye protection because it will be coming back at your face.
Then maybe a q-tip or similar to clean the threads.
Yes, without the track there you just see a row of bolts or, if you remove them, a row of holes in the concrete.
I wasn’t home when they installed it a few years back so I’ve no idea what they set into the concrete after drilling the holes for the bolts to go into, other than it’s supposed to be rated for 150mph winds.
I have a pretty strong wet-dry vac, maybe I’ll pour some water in it, try and stir it up with a wire from a hanger or paper clip, and then see if I can suck the dirt out with it.
I can’t fathom a situation where there’d be a reason to use different length bolts at different locations, rather than just using the long bolts all the way through for simplicity.
I suppose the question is, is the trouble worth fixing it, or just living with it? Fixing it would require removing the old anchors, setting new ones at a consistent depth, and then patching up the patio. Not a hard job perse but also more than an afternoons work.
At first I thought you had cut the slot. Because I have done that more than once to extract a buggered Phillips. I’d dremmel-saw the head and remove with a flat screwdriver.
I usually just bang it real hard using an old flathead as a chisel. Or grind off the head if that fails. Or just destroy all lf the surrounding structure if that fails
