Penetrating Oils

[Bob Rooks]

Not only did I get it apart, but the pipe threads did not "grab" each other, and looked perfectly preserved after the fitting came off, so I was able to screw a brand new one on and get a good seal.

I believe you were lucky Dave, for two reasons. 1) The joint was made up correctly in the first place, sealing both ends of the threaded portion of the joint, allowing the threaded portion to be preserved. 2) One side of the joint, if I understand correctly, is the bronze meter which is far more noble than the galvanized pipe (threads are not galvanized) and would have parted easily anyway. Back in the day it was probably not known to sleeve pipes in acidic environments, or to bed them in washed sand.
If you Google Mixing acetone with ATF - Google Search you will find as many successes as failures. Snopes doesn't turn up anything.

 

[Rich Waugh]

I've been using the acetone/ATF mixture for a few years now and it works significantly better than any of the prepared potions I've tried - LPS, Liquid Wrench, Kroil, B'Laster, etc. I'm amazed at how well it does, in fact. I have an old pump oil can that is still going strong after four or five years with the mix in it. Have to renew the acetone every few months, of course.

Rich

 

[CurlyDave]

I believe you were lucky Dave, for two reasons. 1) The joint was made up correctly in the first place, sealing both ends of the threaded portion of the joint, allowing the threaded portion to be preserved. 2) One side of the joint, if I understand correctly, is the bronze meter which is far more noble than the galvanized pipe (threads are not galvanized) and would have parted easily anyway. Back in the day it was probably not known to sleeve pipes in acidic environments, or to bed them in washed sand...

Actually, the fitting in question was about 3' of galvanized pipe and 3 fittings, and 8" of embedment in a retaining wall away from the meter.

It might have come apart easily with no penetrating oil, but 20 years ago a different section of this line, which had been exposed, but sheltered from the rain for its entire life, could not be unscrewed. I ended up cutting the pipe off with a sawzall, and re-threading the original pipe. Lots of nervous moments as I hoped that the pipe still had enough thickness to be re-threaded.

 

[Bob Rooks]

Yeah, it's hard to beat those old pipe fitting compounds...... like red lead and white lead. Thought nothing of it. Even my baby crib was painted with lead-based paint, as was the whole house and trimwork. Oh well...:laughing: