Replace the nuts with hex ones?

If they don’t have to be that tight then find a bit of thickish wall round tube of ~12mm ID and bash one end square to suit?

10mm square box section, 1mm wall thickness ? or 2mm wall and saw down at each corner and swage out a little.

I think a 10mm A/F 12 point socket is slightly larger than an 8mm square (8mm square fits into a 9.79mm dodecagon). If the 10mm A/F is too big, try a 3/8″ A/F 12-point socket. Both should be available in 1/4″ drive.

The likely gotcha is that the threads will project too much from the nuts for the socket to fit. I have never seen a 12 point box spanner.

I’m not sure offhand whether these will do 8mm square, but I have one and it sometimes saves the day when nothing else will work – very handy for wing nuts for instance:

https://www.screwfix.com/p/toilet-seat-installation-tool/62412

Obviously, if the job were to be repated many times, it would be worth investing a socket to drive square nuts.

Buyt for a one off this might work!

Take a piece of suitably sized hexagon bar, for which you have a socket and mill i 8 mm wide slot across the end.

Drive the hexagon with a normal socket, and hopefully, you will succeed

Although if the 8 mm square is intended to fit into the slot of the mating piece, the fixing has to driven from the top

Howatd

It is a lot and thinking about it since last night I need to up that to 60-70 as I have remembered a few more. They soon add up, one client I did 7 bath/shower rooms and the downstairs loo so that is 8 in the one house.

They are always good earners as the material cost are usually a large proportion of the cost and reasonable percentage profit added to that soon adds up.

Another problem you are likely to run into with any form of socket is the lack of depth as the length of thread that will be sticking out below the nut is quite long. They need the length so that the plate can be tilted at an angle so that it drops down into the hole and then spreads out once it can fall back to horizontal.

I have bent ordinary spanners so that the end is at rightangles to deal with tricky situations.

On 9 June 2024 at 11:42 vintagengineer Said:

A 12 point hexagon socket will drive all square nuts.

… but an 8 point does it so much better.

MichaelG.

Obviously, Jason

… which is why I previously wrote:

Clearly, Jason’s voice of experience needs to be heeded … but on the wider subject of  driving square heads or nuts:

MichaelG.