Boiling worked!

Posted By: Ted
Date: 1/15/08 12:10p.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

In Response To: Heat (Ryan Haley)

Hi, Marty & Ryan -- In case you are interested in the rest of the story, it was obvious after much beating, wedging and cussing that the connector plugs just were not going to come out of the extrusions cold. I was afraid of local, high temp heating so I bought a 6' piece of 1 1/2" steel pipe, screwed on an end cap, set the cap end of the pipe on a nice hot charcoal fire, poured in a couple pints of water, loaded in the extrusion full of plugs and the swaged stay end. After about 15 minutes of boiling I began to hammer the end of the projecting extrusion while pulling on the stay (actually a two-peron job). It worked. After awhile the the first plug began to emerge from the extrusion (albeit with considerable misshaping of the top of the extrusion). I sawed off the battered top inch of the extrusion which was now pinching the plug, and all the plugs just came right out. Once cleaned up and dressed with a file, I could reassemble and disassemble the whole unit with all the extrusions.