Getting rid of salt residue, corrosion in regulator at home.

[Nemrod]

Sometimes I just use a .45-70 Government for cleaning. Then go buy a new one all shiny and pretty that actually works.

 

[rsingler]

I never use...that ridiculous put it in the freezer system

Hey, I was where you are until one evening when my wife (a food scientist) said, "Put it in the freezer". I replied, "Honey, that's the opposite of what we want to do! Everything will contract and my frozen Poseidon DIN bolt will be even tighter!"

She said, "Trust me."

So I did, and I video'ed both the first attempt at removal and when I tried again after overnight in the freezer (since this was in preparation for one of my repair seminars).

Night and day difference. Maybe 30+ Nm and the breaker bar wouldn't budge the connector. I was afraid the hex key was going to damage the broach.
Out of the freezer, and it loosened with less than 20Nm. Piece of cake. I've got it on video, and play that every class.

Everything contracts. The bolt gets smaller, and on the outside, the reg body contracts, too. But it doesn't contact around the bolt. It evidently contracts away from the bolt, microscopically speaking.
EDIT: see @Tanks A Lot 's more erudite discussion below.

It's my first trick, before I start throwing the whole reg in the ultrasonic, or four days of dripping Kroil penetrating oil into the threads. It doesn't work every time, but when it works, it's amazing.

 

[Bigbella]

Hey, I was where you are until one evening when my wife (a food scientist) said, "Put it in the freezer". I replied, "Honey, that's the opposite of what we want to do! Everything will contract and my frozen Poseidon DIN bolt will be even tighter!"

She said, "Trust me."

So I did, and I video'ed both the first attempt at removal and when I tried again after overnight in the freezer (since this was in preparation for one of my repair seminars).

Night and day difference. Maybe 30+ Nm and the breaker bar wouldn't budge the connector. I was afraid the hex key was going to damage the broach.
Out of the freezer, and it loosened with less than 20Nm. Piece of cake. I've got it on video, and play that every class.

Everything contracts. The bolt gets smaller, and on the outside, the reg body contracts, too. But it doesn't contact around the bolt. It evidently contracts away from the bolt, microscopically speaking.

It's my first trick, before I start throwing the whole reg in the ultrasonic, or four days of dripping Kroil penetrating oil into the threads. It doesn't work every time, but when it works, it's amazing.

Plus one.

I have some friends for whom "ride it hard and put it away wet" was always a way of life; and every year or two, while servicing their regulators, would find myself nestling their first stages in our Frigidaire overnight, next to the frozen gyoza, fish balls, and green beans.

Thanks for the probable explanation of the dark magic behind it; didn't really think that overnight would be enough to do affect the metal, when it was first explained to me.

Like you said, it makes every bit of difference; has never failed . . .

 

[Tanks A Lot]

[...]
Everything contracts. The bolt gets smaller, and on the outside, the reg body contracts, too. But it doesn't contact around the bolt. It evidently contracts away from the bolt, microscopically speaking.
[...]

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, and it's one of those concepts I always struggle to fully grasp.

I usually try to explain contraction and expansion using a (admittedly silly) analogy: Imagine the atoms are holding hands in a long line. When we cool the material down, they start to huddle together, they have less energy to move or jiggle around. As a result, the material contracts inward, toward its center.

If we return to the hand-holding analogy and imagine a nut, it might be tempting to think that as it contracts, the outside diameter shrinks while the inside diameter expands. This would mean a nut would get thinner, which seems correct on the face of it, it shrinks. But to allow the inside diameter to grow, the atoms at the inner edge would have to move further apart, and that’s the opposite of what actually happens. In reality, they move closer together, just like the rest of the atoms in the structure. This means that both, the outside diameter of a nut and the inside diameter, will shrink on a nut when it is cooled down.

Cooling causes the distance between all points within the material to decrease proportionally. This includes the distance between points on opposite sides of the inner diameter. Therefore, the inner diameter shrinks, just like the outer diameter and the thickness. The nut becomes a proportionally smaller version of its hotter self in all dimensions.

The Engineeringtoolbox has a small, excellent as usual, page about this subject.

I have written a few lines about this a while ago for a project I'm working on. The freezer method is awesome and something I have used more than I can count. It has not failed me yet. Maybe it's of interest to some.

 

[grantmac]

Cycles of tap hot fresh water then freezer have solved a lot of problems with things I didn't want to force.
Or freezing the whole thing then applying targeted heat to just the outside is a neat trick.