Get mooring shackles off

[Barquito]

I am going to be removing my mooring ball myself this year. I anticipate having trouble getting the pin out of the shackles. I can't seem to get a good grip on the shackle with the tools I have. Any brilliant ideas?

[QuickMick]

I had some that were stuck, and had some luck sticking a screwdriver through the eye w/neednose on the pin. the screwdriver seemed to give me a bit more leverage.

[JohnRPollard]

Originally Posted by Barquito

I am going to be removing my mooring ball myself this year. I anticipate having trouble getting the pin out of the shackles. I can't seem to get a good grip on the shackle with the tools I have. Any brilliant ideas?

Been there, done that.

What I found was that by heating the shackles with a small portable torch, they will release fairly easily. Be careful not to grab the hot shackle -- old oven mitts are handy to have.

Do you have, or can you purchase, a small butane torch? You can get one at the local hardware store for maybe $15-20, and they're handy to have around.

Next year, be sure to liberally coat the shackle threads with Never Seize or similar before redeploying the tackle. Since I've been doing that, I haven't needed the torch again.

[QuickMick]

I got one of these for 15ish bucks. while it is good for soldering, it really doesnt get larger metal pieces hot enough for brazing--ie i couldnt braze my heat exchange unit with it, but its handy to have around.

[remetau]

I like the mini-torches since they are refillable and they are mini.

[sailingdog]

Lanocote is a good solution for preventing this problem. Visegrips and a torch are a good fix for the current situation.

[Barquito]

Fire. Good idea.

I'll bring my torch, and some big wrenches.

[JimsCAL]

I use a big crescent wrench on the shackle pin and stick one handle of the channelock pliers in the shackle for leverage. And I always put some trailer grease on the threads when assembling. Bring some PB Blaster if you haven't greased them.

[ffiill]

A word of warning-My experience is of mooring shackle pins coming loose! In fact on a mooring or anchor rode I would never use a pin replacing it with a bolt with enough spare thread to add a nyloc nut on the end.I lost three shackle pins last year despite they being seized with wire.They were 3/4 inch diameter of commercial grade but unrated .When I examined one I realised that the shackle had been threaded galvanised and then reamed to clean up the gavanising resulting in some thread loss-salt had finished off the job.
In my case I had some $50,000 worth of boat left floating out into the north Atlantic and rescued by a kind fisherman who saw it floating out on the tide-ouch!
Most commercial mooring layers will weld up any shackle pin they can!
Better to have seized shackles than greased ones-you can always saw through the pin or angle grind it!