How to remove silicone off of bolts? Faces are also stuck to outer.

[sqrimp]

So long story short, it seems the previous owner of my LM20s botched a rebuild for the rears and it started leaking the day i had tires mounted.

I broke them apart and found that the silicone was sandwiched between the halves/faces and was squeezed into the bolt threads. I've gotten the halves apart but i'm having a hard time removing the silicone from the hardware. Additionally, since the silicone got squeezed around the face/outer barrel, it's stuck solid. Is it necessary to even remove the face from the outer? I figured since i've cleaned out the silicone from the mating seam, i can just slap em back together and reseal there, without the hassle of breaking the face from the outers.

edit: to be clear, i've rebuilt the fronts of this set to make it square with the rears, and the fronts are holding fine. Granted, i took all of it apart and being only assembled by CCW, there was no excess of silicone on the bolts.

[mista808]

I cleaned the bolt threads on my Crown Jewels with a small wire brush. I soaked all the bolts in a cup filled with PB Blaster over night and went to town the next morning..

Maybe if you got a friend that shoots guns and makes their own bullets, you can use a tumbler/shaker that they use to clean the bullet shells...

[sqrimp]

update:

I ended up attaching a 12 pt socket to my drill and pinched the bolt in some steel wool. turned out ok, even though there was still visible residue, i made sure that i could at the very least hand turn the nuts/bolts together with little to no resistance. I used a lot of blue loctite during reassembly. I did not separate the faces, but did my normal prep on the barrel seam.

I'm a day into having the tires remounted and everything is holding up fine. I'll recheck the bolt torque in a few days and everything should be ok.

thanks for your suggestions mista808

[zoo]

I cleaned the bolt threads on my Crown Jewels with a small wire brush. I soaked all the bolts in a cup filled with PB Blaster over night and went to town the next morning..

Maybe if you got a friend that shoots guns and makes their own bullets, you can use a tumbler/shaker that they use to clean the bullet shells...

I use a tumbler to clean and polish hardware.

[sqrimp]

the problem is, a tumbler would not help remove any silicone from the bolt threads. i dont think there is a medium small enough to fit in between the threads, and on top of that there will not be enough pressure to scrape it out.

[zoo]

Silicone should never be on the threads to begin with. It removes surface rust and other shit/buildup, I doubt it will have issues with silicone. What media do you normally use?

[sqrimp]

Silicone should never be on the threads to begin with.

well yeah, which is the initial reason why i this thread. it seems nobody has ever had this problem either.

It removes surface rust and other shit/buildup, I doubt it will have issues with silicone. What media do you normally use?

there is no normal media for this situation. i had to steel wool the living crap out of the bolts

[zoo]

This media should be able to remove silicone, and whatever else is on your hardware.