What- no propane torch to help? A couple of squirts of " PB Blaster" (
not WD40) and a few minutes with the gas torch on, and you'd be back in
the house enjoying a cold beer.... Even allowing time to remove the
flammable grease/crud, you'd still be saving a lot of time. Heat- even
applied repeatedly in hot cold cycles with alternating squirts of PB,
Kroil or equiv. ( and not WD40) will free most stuck bolts. I've even
had good luck heating up a part and then allowing it to melt some candle
wax into the ' impenetrable' gap.... something about melted paraffin
that's seems to really get in there....
Good luck next time.
Bob Westerdale
59 3A TS 36967
On Mon, 27 Jan 2003, at around 07:46:32 local time, Joe Curry
<Spitlist@gte.net> wrote:
>Michael,
>I would have sawed/drilled or whatever was necessary (including a
>cutting torch) to remove the head from the bolt and with A-frame lower
>control arm and shock free, driven the distance piece and the remainder
>of the bolt out of the trunnion with a hammer and punch. But the first
>time I did it, I toyed around with it about the same amount of time that
>you did. :)
Dear Joe,
Now that is interesting. I rather truncated my description of what I
did yesterday - here it is in full:
Removed nut (five minutes - rusty as hell)
Attempted to push bolt out from the rear using my fingers (one minute -
impossible)
Squirted WD40 all over it, and attempted to tap bolt out from the rear
using a light hammer (ten minutes - impossible)
Attempted to drive bolt out from the rear using a four-pound lump hammer
(half-an-hour - impossible)
Cut the head off the bolt with an angle-grinder (four minutes - fiddly)
Attempted to drive bolt out from the front, using a four-pound lump
hammer and punch (one hour - impossible)
Attempted to drill out the bolt from the front (fifteen minutes - no
significant progress, as the bolt appeared to have been made of depleted
uranium (presumably I had work-hardened it nicely with the punch))
Attempted to hacksaw my way through the bolt inside the bracket on the
lower wishbone (one hour - impossible and tending to cause bad language)
Attempted to use a hand-held woodworking jigsaw with a hacksaw blade in
it to cut through the bolt inside the wishbone bracket (thirty minutes -
impossible)
Had another go with the lump hammer and punch (three-quarters-of-an-hour
- impossible)
Cut the protruding portion of the bolt off with an angle-grinder,
wiggled the whole assembly until the trunnion swung free, removed the
remains of the bolt, distance piece and trunnion bushes from the
trunnion with no further effort whatsoever. (seven minutes)
Fitted new parts and replaced road-wheel (three minutes)
I have had a few off-list replies which suggest that a garage would
simply have cut away the seized sub-assembly and fitted new. At best
that would have meant a new trunnion, and at worst, probably a new lower
wishbone as well. Checking the price lists shows that I saved myself
about GBP25 for a trunnion and about GBP50 for a wishbone. I'm not
entirely convinced that all the effort was worth it. Still, the
exercise did me good, and I'll know to get the angle-grinder out earlier
next time!
ATB
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