need help rebuilding piston

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hey guys, blew a seal on my backhoe attachment last week. i got the seal kit and got the piston apart, but i'm having a hard time getting the nut off the end of the piston. i've tried a pipe wrench, and then i went out and bought a large socket set (i needed 1 3/4) but they outside of the socket is too big to fit into where the nut is recessed into. the socket is a 12 point. are 6 point sockets smaller on the outside? can you use heat? thanks tom

 

[Tazza]

You can use heat to soften up the loctite that is on the threads, these nuts need to be really tight.
I can't tell you if a 6 point socket will have a thinner wall, if it's only a little too big, can you get someone with a lathe to cut a little off to allow it to fit?

 

[shankatank58]

You can use heat to soften up the loctite that is on the threads, these nuts need to be really tight.
I can't tell you if a 6 point socket will have a thinner wall, if it's only a little too big, can you get someone with a lathe to cut a little off to allow it to fit?

As a general rule, 6 point sockets are not any thinner than 12 point. That's not to say the one you find, won't be thinner than what you've got. I have turned sockets down with a grinder, but it's a long slow process, and I hate to do that to a socket. I usually try to find a cheap generic, and if it only works once, I'm happy. Williams sockets seem to be on the thin side. At least the older ones. Not sure where you would find them today. (Darn: lost my paragraphs again! Had that figured out once)

 

[farmshop]

As a general rule, 6 point sockets are not any thinner than 12 point. That's not to say the one you find, won't be thinner than what you've got. I have turned sockets down with a grinder, but it's a long slow process, and I hate to do that to a socket. I usually try to find a cheap generic, and if it only works once, I'm happy. Williams sockets seem to be on the thin side. At least the older ones. Not sure where you would find them today. (Darn: lost my paragraphs again! Had that figured out once)

Usually name brand sockets are thinner than cheap imports. Also impacts are thicker than normal sockets. Heat is the key. Start heating usually you'll smell the loctite melt

 

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Usually name brand sockets are thinner than cheap imports. Also impacts are thicker than normal sockets. Heat is the key. Start heating usually you'll smell the loctite melt

got it done guys, the heat did the trick. and it turns out it was a 1 11/16 socket, not a 1 3/4 so that helped a lot, oddly enough a local hardware store had the socket. never would have thought a small store would have large sockets haha.