In the process of a cooling system service, I decided to pull the fan shroud. It is cracked in one spot and I want to see if I can fix it.

Problem is, the lower fan shroud nuts seem to be seized to their mounting bolts. I did hit them with PB blaster. When I crank the nuts around I can feel the back of the bolt moving, but there's no room to get to it with a wrench. Worse yet, the head of the bolt (behind the mounting bracket) seems to have no useable shape (like hex or slot or anything).

Has anyone had this problem? Is it normal? Do I need to remove the entire radiator just for this?

Thanks!

 

The lower bolts are held in place on two tabs with clip nuts on the shroud. If they are that rusty you could end up snapping off the tabs on the shroud it self, or even the tabs on the core support if they are rusty enough. I would soak the hell out of them and hope for the best. There really isn't much else you can do at this point.

 

Great. I figured that. So, I did as you said. I'll wait and see tomorrow if I can get them off. Worst case, I'll get to try out my new nut cutter and then figure some method of fastening things back together with new hardware.

I am still not able to see exactly what you are talking about - I just have two protruding bolts with the shroud on there and then two (seized) nuts holding the shroud in place.