removing toilet seat? HELP!?!

11 years ago

Replacing a toilet seat has turned into a never ending project. Seat has metal (rusty) bolts and plastic/nylon nuts. There's little room to either side of toilet... and frankly, I'm a bit too claustrophobic to even think about sticking my head in there... probably wouldn't be able to see much anyway.

After thinking about how right/tighty left/loosey would translate from underneath to on top, got out vise grips. The plastic nuts are getting chewed up and vise grips are slipping. Have fear that I'll repeat something my Dad did on my grandmother's toilet... punched a HOLE in the bowl when pliers slipped!?!

Have DROWN the bolts with WD-40 and Liquid Wrench... no help. Seat is the tiniest bit loose. Thinking of trying to slide a thin hack saw under and slowly sawing?? Also had a possibly hare-brained idea?? Have a woodburning tool in my stash of craft stuff. It has interchangeable tips for different things. One is a sharp wedge... for lines. Another is a fine point... for cutting stencils. Wondering if I could just cut thru plastic nut with HEAT?!?

Any tips?

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Comments (4)

MongoCT
11 years ago
It does sound like the easiest for you would be to melt through the the plastic nuts and pry them off the bolts. The hacksaw could work, but hacksaw craziness is also an easy way to damage the china.

To unthread...if standing above the toilet and looking down at the head of the bolt, if you can hold the plastic nut still, turn the bolt counterclockwise. If holding the bolt head still, unthread the nut by turning it clockwise.

Vice-versa if you are laying on the floor and looking up at the nut. Hold the bolt head still and rotate the nut counterclockwise.
pricklypearcactus
11 years ago
So I haven't run into this issue with plumbing, but for removing rusty automotive bolts, I've found PB Blaster to be a miracle worker. Put it on and leave it overnight and the stuff helps unlock tough bolts.
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anoriginal
Original Author
11 years ago
Mongoct! I have had people in BOTH of the home stores try to tell me I was urning the wrong way... and I KNEW I was right! If I hacksaw the bolt off and do some minor scratching on toilet... WHY would this be a big deal? Imagine Martha S would go out of her way to notice and TSK TSK, but thinking any scratches would end up being under new seat??
MongoCT
11 years ago
If you want to hacksaw, I'd recommend trying one thing...if you have a small piece of sheet metal, something like thin aluminum flashing, slide it in between the toilet seat and the top surface of the rim of the bowl, right up next to the bolt. Then slide your hacksaw blade in on top of the aluminum flashing. If you can't slide the blade in, you can cut your way in. When you slide the hacksaw back and forth to cut the bolt, the flashing will take the abuse and protect the surface of the china.

If no flashing, you can tape it with masking tape. The tape will provide some protection but it might be abraded away by the hacksaw blade.

Scratching the surface of the china...sometimes it's just a sanitary issue. If you scratch deeply, you don't have the slicky clean surface of the glaze. Minor scratches can be just that...minor scratches.

If you were to really make a mess of it, you could create a stress raiser. Meaning that a crack could slowly propagate outwards from the location of the damage.

Now that's all worse-case stuff. Many a toilet seat bolt has been hacksawed off many a toilet. Just work in a thoughtful manner.