Picked up a Thrush Turbo muffler and an adapter today because my stock exhaust was... not on the good side, it was pretty crusty. Anyhow, got up under the car and grabbed a 15mm deep socket and tried getting the one single bolt holding the muffler on. It wouldn't budge. At all. I soaked it in so much WD-40 and yet the thing still didn't wanna move a single bit.

Any idea on how to get it out of there? I may have a breaker bar laying around somewhere, but was wondering if there's any tricks y'all may know to get super rusty bolts to break loose before I dig through tons of stuff to find it.

Also has anyone ever used the Thrush Turbo as a muffler? Sound clips are hard to come by for the Neon but there were a few for this muffler and they didn't sound so bad, considering it's $30.

 

Cut it off with a sawzall or angle grinder.

 

Yea, was tempted to. Don't have one myself but I bet a shop would do it for real cheap or something.

 

Got a hack saw and some elbow grease? It's one rusted bolt. Lol

 

A heat gun to warm things up a little & a 50/50 mix by volume, of tranny fluid & acetone make a good home made rust buster.
Be careful it's a flammable mixture, not too much heat, just enough to warm the item up so the mixture wets the surface good & wait a few minutes for it to penetrate, then give it a twist, or rap to shock the fastener & see if it moves. Don't get crazy with torque or shock loading, let the three (mix, shock/torque, time) work together to loosen things up & let us know how it goes.

 

WD-40 isn't a penetrating spray, contrary to popular belief. You need to soak it with something like PB Blaster or AeroKroil if that's the route you want to take.

 

Really oughta get me some PB Blaster soon, it'd help with stuff like this. Actually got the bolt off today by holding a lighter up to the bolt and wiggling it back and forth for a good while after finding an extension for my socket wrench to give more leverage. Now just gotta get that awful clamp off tomorrow when I wake up... More fun! It's rusty as hell just as well.