So I'm trying to take my rear shock off to install coilovers and the bolt on the lower control arm will not come out! The nut is off and the bolt will spin if I put a wrench to it. When I try hitting the bolt out with a hammer doesn't budge! Wtf. I tried heating it, putting the nut on the bolt half way and hit it with a 4 pound sledge hammer until I got tired. Currently letting it soak in liquid wrench and taking a break from this damn thing. Anyone run into this problem??





Ugly rusted shock




The bolt I'm having trouble with




Nut off just fine

 

first off I just wanna say thank god I don't have to live in any rust belt areas like this car obviously does. geez, thats rough. and is that shock so rusted that the coil spring is literally uncoiling? Anyways... I bet a million dollars that the reason that bolt won't come out is because the shock bushing metal collar that the bolt goes thru has become one with the bolt itself. the rust has formed the two pieces together. you will remove the shock and the lower control arm from the vehicle. than very carefully with safety glasses on cut the bottom of the shock off from the bushing housing that has the rusted bolt. than take an air powered cut off wheel and get down inside the control arm and cut the bolt into two or three pieces to get it out of the control arm. than install a new nut and bolt preferably a stainless steel nut and bolt. And it needs to be the exact same size and diameter as the bolt that came out. otherwise it will wollow out the control arm. good luck.

 

is there tension on the bolt? Maybe compress the spring a little to ease up the tension.

 

That would be my guess as well. I would try compressing it to relieve some tension and see if that helps. If not you can always resort to removing the whole arm but it's better to not jump the gun and give that a shot first.


Side note: front wheels look good

 

I agree with badblackgs. I live in upstate ny where they dump ridiculous amounts of salt in the winter and a lot of times the rust fuses everything together. If compressing the spring doesn't work, you'll have to grind it or cut it with a torch. Good luck.

 

The fact that you can spin the bolt leads me to believe it is probably the spring which is putting pressure on the bolt and not letting it come out. Probably the bolt threads are being wedged against the control arm flange. Did you undo the control arm from the wheel hub? That will allow the strut to drop down once you undo the the three shock tower nuts in the trunk. You can then use a small jack to raise and lower the control arm so that there is no tension on the bolt.

 

Thank you guys so much for brainstorming with me! First time using this form and I'm super happy with the quick replys! Anyways I'm going to try what you guys suggested, least drastic to most, and hopefully I get this project done. I'll update and let you guys know what's up.

 

i'm not a mechanic nor have done something like this before....

but have you tried removing up the upper strut mount bolts, making the assembly loose and jiggle it around and see?

 

So badblackgs was right, "the shock bushing metal collar that the bolt goes thru has become one with the bolt itself." However getting the lower control arm off was a mission by itself. I ended up leaving the LCA on and grinding the bolt head off. Afterwards I drilled out the bolt until it could clear and repeated on the threaded side. Result i got the first rear coilover on! Fingers crossed hopefully the other side isn't as bad.

Side note: I'm never going to buy a rusty car again after this work out, famous last words "how bad could a little rust be?"

 

Here's some pictures of this thing

 

I'm glad you out man. I'm sure the other side will go quicker now that you've done one side already.

 

I'm assuming that IS NOT originally a California car. That somebody moved from somewhere where the cars rust to California

 

i bought my car from Manhattan and live in Tn so as i have been modding my car all this time, whenever i replace, upgrade, and/or remove a part, i have bought NEW OEM bolts and installed them also so i dont have any issues like this. yes i know its a little more costly but saves me a lot of headache down the road

 

Was the bolt actually fused? I had this happen to me ,but I used a screwdriver as a "tap" and a hammer to get the bolt out. The compression of the strut made it so it was unable to come out unless force was used.

 

That's a really good idea! I've been making too many trips lowes ahah.