Oversized Screw for Residential Air Conditioner

[Soft Cars]

Have you ever stripped out a self tapping screw on your residential air conditioner? We've all done it when taking the lid off to vacuum out the leaves from the condensing unit. You wish you knew the perfect oversized screw, but didn't want to go through all the research to find it?

Well guess what? You don't have to. I've done all the research for you.

Auveco

Dixieland

 

[Hall]

What about when someone strips out the new, larger hole ?

Self-tapping/sheet metal screws have always come in multiple sizes though.

 

[bullwinkle]

Yes-and I usually put a Pop-Nut/Riv-Nut & a stainless machine screw in it, or a steel one & a little antiseize.

 

[Fla]

Amazon. You can buy an assortment of about 200 different sized (10 or 12 sizes) sheet metal screws for about $10. I got tired of losing the darned things too.

PS I haven't had a big problem with the screws rusting but I bought stainless steel ones so that I won't have to worry about them in the future.

 

[brianl703]

Amazon. You can buy an assortment of about 200 different sized (10 or 12 sizes) sheet metal screws for about $10. I got tired of losing the darned things too.

Just throw that in the back of your pickup truck, if you have one. The tire shops will appreciate the additional business!

(The most common thing I've ever found to cause tire punctures is sheet metal screws...)

 

[Fla]

The most common things that I find in tires are used roofing nails. Espescially after a hurricane and after the roofing companies have replaced thousands of roofs in the area. The companies are very careless about disposing of the old nails and they're usually scattered around houses and in the lawns and also on the road from their flimsy overloaded trash trailers. I had my roof replaced after one hurricane and within a week I had nails in three tires, two of which could not be repaired. I had already been finding nails in my yard and falling off of the roof and into my drive way so I called my insurance company and complained. They send out an insprector with a magnetic broom and within minutes they found several hundred nails in my yard so they ended up paying for all of my tires and debting the roofing company for them.

 

[Soft Cars]

What about when someone strips out the new, larger hole ?

Self-tapping/sheet metal screws have always come in multiple sizes though.

You're probably wondering how I arrived at that specific screw. The truth is, I collect fasteners. I already had a few of those screws, although I have no idea where they came from. After measuring one example that I had, I came to the conclusion that it must be a license plate screw. The reason being is the thread pitch. A 2.5mm thread pitch is wider and coarser than standard sheet metal screws.

The first time I tried one, I turned it in by hand with a 10mm nut driver. It went in real hard because it was cutting its way in. After the initial cut, they go in real easy. There's something about that coarse thread pitch that seems to go well with the sheet metal. The finer thread sheet metal screws always strip out too easy.

One thing to note is I don't recommend power tools when dealing with sheet metal screws that you ever intend to remove. The reason being is because the power impact driver "frightens" the sheet metal. I recommend hand powered nut drivers because they give you the necessary physical feedback that only a hand tool provides.

 

[Lubener]

I have had the stripped screw issue before. It wasn't a big deal as I have a ton of assorted screws. I just picked out one slightly larger in diameter and it was good to go. Nothing complicated about it.

 

[Soft Cars]

I have had the stripped screw issue before. It wasn't a big deal as I have a ton of assorted screws. I just picked out one slightly larger in diameter and it was good to go. Nothing complicated about it.

That's exactly what I did; picked out a screw from a jar full of miscellaneous tapping screws. I knew I had to find one that wasn't too long because I didn't want to puncture the condensing coils. I determined that about 5/8 was the limit. It just so happened that the only screws I had that were short enough with a larger diameter were license plate screws. And it just so happened that they worked perfect.

 

[John105]

The most common things that I find in tires are used roofing nails. Espescially after a hurricane and after the roofing companies have replaced thousands of roofs in the area. The companies are very careless about disposing of the old nails and they're usually scattered around houses and in the lawns and also on the road from their flimsy overloaded trash trailers. I had my roof replaced after one hurricane and within a week I had nails in three tires, two of which could not be repaired. I had already been finding nails in my yard and falling off of the roof and into my drive way so I called my insurance company and complained. They send out an insprector with a magnetic broom and within minutes they found several hundred nails in my yard so they ended up paying for all of my tires and debting the roofing company for them.

I confronted a contractor once and you can guess how that went. He denied it, yet took the screw out of my hand and walked away. I just don’t like bold faced liars. At the same time, one has to admit it’s a skill that tends to help a person advance in our society.

2 tires on one side got them in the “no” zone, but I plugged them anyway. They leaked when on the front, but not the back.

 

[Fla]

That's exactly what I did; picked out a screw from a jar full of miscellaneous tapping screws. I knew I had to find one that wasn't too long because I didn't want to puncture the condensing coils. I determined that about 5/8 was the limit. It just so happened that the only screws I had that were short enough with a larger diameter were license plate screws. And it just so happened that they worked perfect.

My mother was very much a DIYer and she always kept a small box of misc screws around for small repair jobs. When she married for the 2nd time, her new husband came from a well to do family that never fixed things for themselves and he laughed at "Mary's screw box" but he quickly found out how handy it was!

One thing that I learned early on with cars and other machinery was that if you ever find a loose nut, bolt or screw around it is to never throw them away. Because somewhere down the road you're probably going to find out where it came from and you'll need it and many of them need to be an exact shape and size, so if you threw away then you're have to go a Stealership and pay an arm and a leg for a replacement.

 

[nomas]

I bought a magnet sweeper for myself . After my roof replacement last year I saw the crew walking around with magnets but I wanted to go back over it . When the guy from the company came by to check the job I showed him 23 nails I had picked up myself . That was a whole lot of flat tires on my ZTR that I avoided .