Stuck on a valve repair that should have taken 20 minutes

Last week I was on a job in Corpus Christi fixing a stuck gate valve on a water intake pipe. I thought it would be a quick swap, but the bolts were rusted solid from years of salt exposure. Ended up spending almost 4 hours with a torch and impact wrench to get them loose. Has anyone else had a simple repair turn into an all day fight down here?

2 comments

2 Comments

tessawebb18d ago

Dude, that's the Gulf Coast special right there. Salt air gets into everything and turns simple bolts into a solid mass of rust. Had a similar deal on a valve at a shrimp dock in Galveston, what should've been a 30 minute job turned into a whole afternoon with a cutting wheel and swear jar.

morgan_jenkins9018d ago

Did you at least have a torch big enough to get the bolts glowing cherry red? I've dealt with salt rust before, but 4 hours on gate valve bolts sounds like they were welded on with nature's own locktite. Bet you had to step back a few times and rethink the whole approach.