In-door residential oil tank - how do I get a top plug out?

[joefrompa]

Hi all,

I have an in-door residential oil tank that took 234 gallons to top-off, so I'm guessing it's about 250 gallons. It's 44 inches high I believe.

My oil meter is busted, and the oil meter is plugged into a side of the tank that has a 2-in-1 pipe split that allows oil to fill it and the oil gauge to sit there. So I'm not removing that 2-1 side.

On the other side of the oil tank is another threaded plug with a 1" square nut on top of the plug itself. I sprayed the plug threads with WD-40 and attacked it with a ~12-16" plumbers wrench that allowed me to get a good grip.

I exerted all the force I could and didn't budge it. I felt like I was threatening the soldered fittings/oil tank itself with how much force I was torqueing it - I could feel the tank shift very slightly.

Can anyone give me a tip on how to break this sucker loose? Is it threaded opposite normal (i.e. I need to turn clockwise instead)?

Is it safe to put a 3' cheater pipe over the wrench and REALLY put some force on it?

Thanks all...I'd really like to know how much oil I have left and how much I've used...

Joe

 

[steam man]

I can't remember the thread size of the fitting. I think older tanks were 1 1/2" and new tanks may be 2". In this ball park anyway. A 12-16" pipe wrench is a little marginal for torque. I would say a 24" one (or with a cheater) would be OK. Get some PB Blaster. This beats WD40 by a long shot. Spray and keep soaking it, even overnight. You can tap the plug with a hammer lightly to help loosen the threads. Pipe threads can be tough since the solvent can't penetrate that well. Its a standard right hand thread-just tough to get out since you can't use heat.

 

[Reggie Dunlap]

PB Blaster is good stuff, Liquid Wrench would be my second choice. It might take a few days of spraying to get the PB Blaster to penetrate. WD40 does not seem to penetrate very well.

 

[yooperdave]

get as big of a pipe wrench as you can...24" as somone stated. the longer the handle, the more the leverage. you might want to use a "cheater" to gain extra leverage. be careful with the cheater! now don't everyone else start jumping on how unsafe it is to use them...be honest-we all have from time to time! one more thing-if its in your basement, you shouldn't really need penentrant oil. you probably just need to turn it like you have a pair. and oh yeah...righty tighty, lefty loosey!

 

[nate379]

I'd heat it with a small propane torch.

AND YES before anyone says it, yes I realize what is in the tank. Just don't go stupid with the torch, just need to warm it up a bit. Plug may have some thread sealant and heat will help to melt it.

Also like everyone else said, put some penetrating oil on it. PB Blaster, Kano, Kroil, etc. WD40 is good for cleaning guns and not much else.

 

[fishingpol]

Can you knock on the side of the tank and hear the sound difference? Kinda like tapping an expansion tank to see if it is waterlogged.

 

[semipro]

I'd heat it with a small propane torch.

AND YES before anyone says it, yes I realize what is in the tank. Just don't go stupid with the torch, just need to warm it up a bit. Plug may have some thread sealant and heat will help to melt it.

Also like everyone else said, put some penetrating oil on it. PB Blaster, Kano, Kroil, etc. WD40 is good for cleaning guns and not much else.

+1 WD40 is one of the most overused, over-rated products ever. Its a water dispersant for gosh sakes. That's what "WD" stands for. It also works well if you have moisture in your distributor cap but its not much of a penetrating oil or lubricant.

Oh yeah, it does a pretty good job on carpenter bees too. Gotta give it some credit.

 

[btuser]

PB Blaster - Manna from Heaven!

Are you just trying to check the level of the tank? If the gauge is busted you can unscrew the site glass, and maybe there's enough room to slip a dipstick beside the slide.

 

[woodgeek]

Just wire a 120V hour timer to your furnace burner and log burner run time * the gph of your nozzle. I and couple other folks here are doing that. Easy to read, accurate digital display.

 

[Wallyworld]

Last I knew Pipe plugs were liquid tite, how is penetrating oil going to penetrate something that's liquid tite? Get a bigger wrench and pull

 

[velvetfoot]

My only experience is when I installed a Rocket Wireless Oil Gauge, http://oil-equip-mfg.com/docs/productsrocket.html .
The plug I took off came off easy.
btw, the wireless gauge is great. I'm down to three bars (out of ten) so an oil order is in my future.

 

[billb3]

+1
real penetrating oil
tap it with a hammer to break rust


I put a long pipe on the handle for an extension to increase torque.
Why struggle ?
You'll either turn the plug or bust the plug.
I've used longer pipes, too.

 

[joefrompa]

Thanks gents. I wanted to make sure I wasn't in danger of seriously messing something up. Also, tapping on the side didn't work (made the same sound empty as full...weird, I know). I bought the oil gauge already and it was $16 and you just screw it in. Can't get much easier or cheaper than that.

I broke it loose last night using a 4' extension pipe on a 12" wrench (so about 4' of total leverage) combined with a thick spraying of PB Blaster. It took almost all my force to bust it loose and it "broke" the seal very quickly (scary). Of course, it required me to STILL use the cheater pipe for 2 full turns before it came loose enough to just use the wrench. As a comparison, I've used less force to break loose axle nuts which were secured at 250-300 lb/ft of torque.

 

[semipro]

Thanks gents. I wanted to make sure I wasn't in danger of seriously messing something up. Also, tapping on the side didn't work (made the same sound empty as full...weird, I know). I bought the oil gauge already and it was $16 and you just screw it in. Can't get much easier or cheaper than that.

I broke it loose last night using a 4' extension pipe on a 12" wrench (so about 4' of total leverage) combined with a thick spraying of PB Blaster. It took almost all my force to bust it loose and it "broke" the seal very quickly (scary). Of course, it required me to STILL use the cheater pipe for 2 full turns before it came loose enough to just use the wrench. As a comparison, I've used less force to break loose axle nuts which were secured at 250-300 lb/ft of torque.

So did you put something on the gauge threads to keep it from happening again; like teflon or anti-seize?

 

[joefrompa]

No, but I'm not worried. The original one was iron (I believe) and had been unmoved for 35 years. The new one might be aluminum (a very unpolished silvery metal, fairly lightweight) and I'll move it around probably once a year since it's far less tight fitting. Corrosion won't be able to work it's mojo here

P.s. The paper towels that I used to clean the oil off that plug burned for a nice long time in my wood burning stove. It probably had about 1/16th of an ounce of heating oil on it, and it looked like an old-fashioned castle torch. Hehehe....

 

[semipro]

No, but I'm not worried. The original one was iron (I believe) and had been unmoved for 35 years. The new one might be aluminum (a very unpolished silvery metal, fairly lightweight) and I'll move it around probably once a year since it's far less tight fitting. Corrosion won't be able to work it's mojo here

Well.... theoretically the new aluminum plug will seize much faster than the old one. Before you had a steel plug in a steel tank so the metals weren't dissimilar. Now you have an aluminum plug stuck in a steel tank. Its much more likely that galvanic corrosion will occur. Its the corrosion products building up between the threads that cause the seizing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_corrosion

 

[steam man]

Got to love it when a plan comes through. large pipe fittings can take a lot of ooomph to break free. If the new plug is aluminum as you think it is, better get a good coating of antiseize or teflon on the threads. Sounds like a dissimiliar metal problem on its way which would really seize things up.

 

[joefrompa]

Ok, since it's so easy to spin on/off I'll slap some teflon tape around the threads to keep it from being stuck in place.

 

[btuser]

Something tells me they wouldn't have used aluminium, maybe die-cast or an alloy. Somebody at the listing agency should have caught that, seeing how almost every fuel tank is steel. But you never know.