Although Stu is givin’ ya a little Red Assin’ about the heat, some do use heat. There are different opinions on heating heat forged, treated, steering components. If you are going to reuse them, I for one do not believe it is a good practice, others have done it for years and claim never to have had an incident. If your on the clock and are replacing the pitman arm for a customer with a new one then that would be appropriate. Do a little reading and use your own judgment about it.
I’ve used Kroil as Bill suggested for decades and found it to penetrate and loosen up a rusted part better than the others I have tried, i.e., Liquid Wrench, PB Blaster etc. “Testimonial;” I have totally disassembled my ’50, 3604 under carriage, brakes and drive line and I did not find one single bolt that did not come loose after soaking with Kroil.
You have a lot of surface area in contact on a splined shaft. If moisture has gotten into the spline, which there is a 99.9% chance that it has, that equates to a rather large frictional area. After a good soaking I put as much tension on the puller that I think it can stand then go do something else. Come back later re-soak it, tension the puller an repeat and it will come off eventually.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
