{"id":2921,"date":"2017-06-05T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2017-06-05T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mechanicalmalarkey.com\/?p=2921"},"modified":"2017-06-05T06:00:09","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T10:00:09","slug":"just-get-the-torch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mechanicalmalarkey.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/05\/just-get-the-torch\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Get The Torch"},"content":{"rendered":"

When starting as a mechanic, there are things you learn from reading, and things you learn from seeing and doing. After a while you know when not to bother with some things and when to skip straight to what’s usually the last option, brute force or the torch.<\/p>\n

\"2017_06_05_01.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Exhaust systems are often the rustiest parts of cars, because they’re bare metal at the very bottom of the vehicle, getting constantly sprayed with water and salt. With a car even a year or two old you’re lucky to loosen the bolts holding it together with just your tools. A little longer and you’ll need to heat them up with a torch, and if it’s been several years the bolts are pretty much just little lumps of rust and it’s time to just melt them off with the torch.<\/p>\n

\"2017_06_05_02\"<\/p>\n

That’s what I had to do to replace the muffler on my sister’s 2003 Subaru Outback. Because I have experience with rusty exhaust I knew to immediately just get the torch instead of messing around with trying to use regular tools to even get a grip on the rusty bolts. After several minutes of blowing sparks and molten metal across the floor the remains of the muffler came off and I just had to clean up the leftover metal and clear out the holes for new bolts.<\/p>\n

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-Dan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When starting as a mechanic, there are things you learn from reading, and things you learn from seeing and doing. After a while you know when not to bother with some things and when to skip straight to what’s usually the last option, brute force or the torch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13],"tags":[37,55],"class_list":["post-2921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-cars","category-in-the-shop","tag-exhaust","tag-rust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mechanicalmalarkey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mechanicalmalarkey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mechanicalmalarkey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mechanicalmalarkey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mechanicalmalarkey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mechanicalmalarkey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mechanicalmalarkey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mechanicalmalarkey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mechanicalmalarkey.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}