Picked up a bunch of K-9 Extremes at a fair price but when I got them I realized why the price was so good. All the parts are good but a lot of rust and all the fasteners are shot. The springs I’m pretty sure are salvageable if not I’m gonna have to do some serious groveling with Kendall to get him to sell me some replacements without breaking the bank. There are 74 of them. Anyway I’m gonna add to this showing the process I use to restore them. I took a picture of one of the average ones and starting the process of taking them apart. So far I have all the jaws off which looks to be the hardest part. I’ll explain that later with a list of tools needed. I am separating the parts into buckets and will tumble each type of part in play sand before I start to refinish them which will depend on how that comes out. Wish me luck.

Good luck!!

Let’s see some pics.

Be interesting to watch and see what you do and how.

This is what I’m starting with

This is it with the jaws removed. To remove them there are four small cap screws that take an allen wrench with nylon inserted nuts. The inserts were gone and the screws very rusted. Thank goodness for P B Blaster. Still broke at least a dozen out of 296. It was a serious pain. The main springs are a bugger too as they look like they belong on a truck. Tomorrow I’ll start taking the rest of the parts off. I’m replacing all the fasteners with exact replacements except I’m going with stainless.

This is going to be an interesting thread, watching the process from start to finish.

My one question is, will it be worth your time and effort to restore them or is it more of a project to make you feel good about being able to salvage the traps.

How many hours do you suppose you will have invested in this project.

were the springs weak? if not it you should have just put them in the dye pot and boiled them for awhile. they would have cam out nice.

and if i'm not mistaken the main springs are just plain ole #3 music wire springs. i could be wrong though.

If those are considered bad condition...then at the end of seson all I have is junk....before I tumble mi ne in a cement mixer.

All those traps need is tumbling and waxing or dying and waxing.

I was thinking the same thing. Every trap I set during the season looks like that at the end of it. My coated K9 Jrs look better, but even a few of them get beat up.

What you can’t see is the corrosion on all the fasteners. The bodies of them aren’t too bad but I tried to adjust the pan on some and the first 2 clevis screw broke off. Then I tried to take the pans off and both those screws broke off. That’s when I decided to replace all the fasteners and go ahead and clean them up. As far as it being worth it financially I will technically come out cheaper than buying new and as far as my time it is the challenge. I would have boiled dyed and waxed them if it hadn’t been for the fasteners.

I have broken down many traps in my lifetime and cleaned each part, I guess I do it the hard way, lol. I buff each part on my bench grinder using a wire brush wheel. I do them one at a time. The one thing I had a problem with was the jaws. Every once in a while I would break the jaw tip off, I have a decent inventory of jaws, some new, some used. I usually have a difficult time getting the jaws to line up properly when I have to replace one. Many times I would get disgusted and replace both jaws with a pair of jaws. Not sure why they seldom matched up nice for me, I hope you don't have that problem if you didn't keep them paired.

Salt for antifreeze? That's what I'm thinking. I hate salt for that reason among others.

Do you have a small automobile battery charger? With a 5 gallon bucket, laundry borax and some sacrifice metal you can build a de-ruster and use electrolysis to clean that rust off those traps a lot easier than all the hand work you are doing. Type in this tube about making one and save yourself some effort............. the mike

wow id cry if mine were that rusted. Ive got #2 longs that still look good almost like new today and I bought them in 1980s and have had them in the ground every season since. Good trap treatment and waxing is a must for good long life. Corrosive freeze proofing sets is not good either.
Storage is offseason matters a lot too. clean them after each season and store them in a dry place away from rain and humidity as much as possible.
I wouldn't let my wrenches and hammer look like that nor would I let my traps either.
Thanks for rescuing those and keep us posted on progress. Appreciate the pics too.
Jim

A thought - why not try several methods and compare them? Vinegar, electrolysis, take apart, cement mixer, etc

Dang those aren't to bad. Givem a vinegar soak then boil and wax and you will be good to go.

I was thinking vinegar bath also. Then take them to the car wash and give em a cleaning. They’ll look like brand new.

You guys are missing the point. His fasteners have seized up, making the function of the trap inoperable.

He HAS to take the traps apart to replace the hardware, so he is just going to clean up the traps at the same time.

I'm sure he understands how to rust, dye, and wax traps...