Nice little trick for removing bolts rusted to bushing sleeves

[epowell]

I could not get the rear shock lower bolt out - frozen bolt to sleeve syndrome.
Spent an hour on YT last night watched at least 6 vids and every single vid said you gotta cut her off with a sawzall.

Today I decided just to soak it in weasel piss for a week then try again with the sledge hammer..... but my neighbor who is a great mechanic passed by and I asked his opinion about it - he gave me a few very valuable tricks, which worked.

First off he pointed out to me that often these metal sleeves are made from a flat piece of metal rolled into a tube - so if it is this type of sleeve you are in luck... you can locate that place where the metal joins and hammer it open with a flathead screw driver.

Then.... you don't want to torch too much on rubber because it is very very toxic, but burning it out a little bit will both help shock the rust as well as get rid of a bit of the rubber to that when you hammer open the sleeve again the metal will have more space to expand into.

So after a bit of torching, I rotated the crack in the sleeve to 12 oclock and sprayed some penetrating oil on it so gravity would let the oil seep into the crack....

Next I used a drift on the end of the bolt and out it came!

Then put on the shock.

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www.edwardpowell.com

[vanis13]

[VicVan]

Thanks for the tip! Great pics too.
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'90 Little Blue Truck, 2WD auto, FAS GenV 2.0 NA (AVH)

[Schnippzle]