Help! stuck bolt that holds upper control arm on my '89 Van

[epowell]

[nilloc]

So my driver's side upper control arm bolt was even more stuck than the above!

Here's my story so far:

- Remove nut
- Couldn't get bolt to move turn at all.
- Heated to glowing red and rubber smoking like no tomorrow.
- Still no movement.
- Air chisel the living daylights our of the threaded end.
- Cold chisel with 10 pound sledge, no movement.
- 30" breaker bar with impact hex tool can torque the bolt up and down 90 degrees but the threaded end won't turn at all.

Take 2:

- Cut off both ends between crossmember and bushings, at least I have the control arm off!
- Still can't budge eccentric washers, they appear to have become one with the bolt.
- Chisel washers, no movement, sounds like solid metal.
- Heat each washer to glowing red, then smack with cold chisel.
- Success! Both washers are out, and straight into the art bin.
- The tube across the crossmember (presumably to prevent compression when tightening the bolt) has a seam down the back, passenger side (the one with easier access if you have A/C) looks nice and clean, driver's side is rusty and swollen...
- Hardened steel bolt has killed all my Sawzall metal blades.
- Off to the Homeless Despot to get more blades.

The plan now is to cut off that tube with the bolt stuck in, remove the 2 remaining 1/2" sections of bolt, and put a new pipe across the gap with sealing adhesive and lots of anti-seize on the replacement bolt and washers.

I'll update with results Friday when the weather clears.

[jonsonneborn]

[epowell]

[Christopher Schimke]

[Sodo]

UCA =Upper Control Arm

Here's a simple tool I made to push the UCA bolt out. I'm not sure it would have worked on a bolt as stuck as nilloc's.

Syncro Upper Control arm bolt pusher (Home made tool)

It's welded in the pic, but I used it (un-welded) to push the UCA bolt out first. Then welded it and pushed the other UCA out and of course it worked better. But the point is, you don't have to weld it to push out two UCA bolts.

_________________


'90 Westy EJ25, 2Peloquins, 3knobs, pressure-oiled GT mainshaft, filtered, cooled gearbox
'87 Tintop w 47k 53k, '12 SmallCar EJ25, cooled filtered gearbox
....KTMs, GasGas, SPOT mtb

[nilloc]

Well here's my update, the bolt is out, I wish I hadn't made the 2 extra cuts however. Here's the aftermath if anyone wants to see how much bolt was corroded away:

As you can see how wide and narrow it got between the end and middle, the rest of the tub was filled with swollen rust flakes jamming it all in there, and even splitting open the seam on the back of the tube. This made it hard to get any tooling in along the side of the bolt to clean out the rust before I'd made those 2 extra cuts. Making those 2 cuts doesn't allow removal of the center section of the tube, however. I was an idiot and didn't realize it's also welded to the back of the shock mount cone, and that cut was going to be much more fiddly. So the tube is still there, and now I need to re-weld it in place. I'm going to also seal it with seam sealer after that to hopefully keep it from corroding again later.

I ended up still having to pry the (oval) tube open a bit from the back (between the upper crossmembers).
Then I was able to soak the bolt in penetrating oil for a couple days.
Then use a combination of small picks, screwdrivers and brushes to attempt to clean out some of the flaked off rust.
Then try heating it one more time, then 2 more times after that.

Then penetrating oil for 3 more days.

Then a cold chisel cut down to allow more swinging room with an 8lb sledgehammer, and it MOVED! Barely perceptible, in fact I could only tell it moved at all because it began to obscure the cut I'd made in that tube, so the cut was useful for that I guess...

I'd tried something similar to Sodo's UCA bolt pusher, but it wasn't making any progress and felt likely to do damage to the underbody (it was flexing the back of the battery box alarmingly). I think heat, chemicals and shock were critical to getting mine out.

I also don't think the tube is critical for locating the bolt, especially not the middle section. The 2 eccentric washers should be the only contact point for the axial load from the UCA or they wouldn't really set camber. I do think it provides some support for the upper crossmember, and it definitely is under compression when the control arm bolt is tightened (more so in my case as I'm installing GW Delrin and SS bushings).

[therastavan]

I may have to cut my bolt as well, question is if the eccentric washers are rusted on and I have to replace them with new ones how do I know what position to put them in since marking them with white paint isn't going to matter anymore since I will not be reusing the eccentrics and cannot get them out?

[epowell]

[MarkWard]