Trini Evo

Will the heat damage the arm itself?

jrainwater

iTrader: (10)

No, I used map gas though. Don't use acetaline obviously. The yellow tank one will work. It heats up the bolt really well and you can break it free that way.

blknblubkrdude

iTrader: (16)

I had this same bolt siezed to the sleeve of the bushing at 52k miles in a salt-free environment. It did however see snow.

I had my subframe on the ground, and a 3/4" drive IR impact would not cut it, mostly due to the rubber of the bushing absorbing each blow of the impact.

What ended up working was a 24" breaker bar, and a 4 foot cheater pipe and my 185lb body jumping on that 6 feet of leverage.

jrainwater

iTrader: (10)

You're lucky you didn't snap the bolt off in there.

blknblubkrdude

iTrader: (16)

Roger that! Even if the bolt broke, it would be the head, as the bolt was siezed to the sleeve and not the subframe. I really was expecting the 12pt. Chrome socket to grenade before anything.

jrainwater

iTrader: (10)

That's another part of my reasoning for heating up the bolt and melting the bushings. It frees them up to spin inside of the control arm and then come out.

charlie.tunah

iTrader: (7)

I broke mine with a long breaker bar and 2 of us. That led to some minor surgery but the nut survived in the frame!

blknblubkrdude

iTrader: (16)

Heat was applied, but I was a little cautious as to not overheat the rubber.

Charlie glad it came out easy enough. I used to live in the salt belt and worked on a Cherokee that had nuts welded inside the unibody for the leafspring bolts. Of course the nuts broke free and just spun in the frame. Had to remover interior parts and cut a hole in the floor in order to get a wrench on the nut. Good times.

TommiM

iTrader: (19)

You know the bolt will come out easier if you support the subframe BEFORE you try to loosen it
Otherwise your loosening it while the bolt still has its share of the weight of the subframe.

Trini Evo

Thanks guys will be tring to heat it up shortly I'll report back after.

charlie.tunah

iTrader: (7)

Decide if you want to hit it with a torch to burn the rubber and make a big mess, hopefully it gets the bolt loose before disintegrating the rubber. If you dont want to us heat, put a big breaker bar on it and go to town. If the sleeve in the bushing breaks loose from the rubber (but is still seized to the bolt) and starts to spin....STOP. Going any further will push the nut out of the cage and require major surgery. SOMETHING should give here if the bushing holds up. I had a similar experience to blknblue and snapped the head off of mine. Which basically meant that all I had to do was cut the bolt on the other side of the bushing and fish what was left of the bolt out of the nut. If you burn away the rubber and the bolt is still seized, I imagine it is fairly hard to hold the sleeve while torquing on the bolt. Same applies here...if you keep spinning it while it is seized, it WILL cause the nut to come out of the cage.

I wound up having to make 1 incision where the tie brace bolts to to get to the other side of the bushing. Once I got the cohones to just break the bolt with the breaker bar, the whole job was fairly easy and required about 2 min of welding. I F'ed with it for hours before making that decision...

And yes....I too have had my fair share of retrieving hardware from the frames of rusty jeeps

TimIacobucci

One of the bigger lessons I learned was to just do the thing even if it seemed like a pain at the time instead of messing around. Sometimes this means taking off more stuff to gain access to something. How many times have you wasted 3x more time trying to get a bolt or part off than it would have to simply remove what ever was in the way with the removal of a few more bolts?

Sometimes it means just breaking a bolt or part that is not letting go. Normally I would say torch it but then you could damage the bushing AND still end up breaking the bolt. Fixing the broken bolt is annoying but it's a straight forward repair at that point, no more guessing or messing around being scared or indecisive about how to proceed. Just crank on it and break it off, hey it might even just come out.

ProPilot04

iTrader: (11)

Just to add, since I just wrestled with this.

I ordered a second subframe from Japan, cut it open off the car, welded the nuts inside. Then I installed my bushings, my second set of control arms, and swapped subframes. I pulled my stock subframe off, cut it open, and welded the nuts. I have STILL, not been able to get the drivers side ball joint to release from the knuckle (I ordered a new knuckle, and hub assy as well LOL), and I have STILL not been able to get the front LCA bolt to release.

Car is garage kept in the winter. 65k miles. Passenger side went fine. But now I have two complete front setups.

This was NOT a fun project. And all over a blown out ball joint.

jrainwater

iTrader: (10)

If you want to sell the lca's let me know. I want to rebuild some with whiteline bushings and ball joints off of the car. I also need a subframe as mine is pretty rusted but I'm looking at that subframe in another post that some fab shop is making for the evo now. It looks pretty amazing and saves weight too.

EvOXKanG