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Park and shimano make little tools to hold the chainring nut and only cost about 5$. They can still be hard to work with though.


You could try drilling it out but I suspect it will spin just as it does when you try to use a wrench.

Taking of the crank may give you better access to the bolt. Are these Steel or Aluminum bolts? I typically use steel and grease or put Phil Wood oil on the threads during assembly.

That would work if it were tight.

As it is, the bolt is siezed up but not compressed around the hole in the chainrig, so the bolt-nut assembly just spins around.

They are useful cheap little buggers, I used mine Saturday night to get one of my bolts off.

The park tool that I used could not get a good bite on the nut.

Then I used the other style of tool that is built on a spring-loaded C-clamp and I ended up bending the tabs that grip the slot on the nut and this ended up stripping the slots further.

Judging from how easily they stripped, I imagine that the bolts are aluminum. Should I be concerned with corrosion if I switch to steel?

addendum after reading andre's post:

assuming you have tried and failed with the chainring nut tool you could also try drilling it out. to avoid the spinning problem, stick a wrench in the front end and drill from the back - you only need to take off the little lip.