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I have been working slowly and steadily on replacing my strut rods for my 99 LS400 until I became stuck on removing the cam bolt holding the bushing in place. Any advice on getting it out? It's a really hard to access area.
I have attached some pictures.
Cam bolt inner Strut rod bushing to be removed Cam outer (nut removed)
The tension from the suspension is probably helping keep that bolt wedged in there.
So here's the tip:
(with the car on jack stands, of course)
gradually jack up the brake rotor until you can feel the camber bolt is un-stressed, and it should slide out more easily
sub-tips that are not necessary, but would make it easier:
a helper in the driver's seat, stepping on the brakes will stop the rotor from moving while you do this
a helper doing the jacking up carefully while you're feeling for the bolt tension to reduce, will help
less driving through the salt mines will help some of the minor surface corrosion
That bolt is probably seized in the metal sleeve of the bushing. I know mine was and I had to torch the whole bushing and then use a sawzaw to cut it out. That was a really long day.
My car was much less rusty and the bolt was almost fully seized. Got it out eventually.
Yoy probably need to cut the bolt away carefully. I bought a new OEM bolt from Toyota dealer.
Spray penetrating oil into the area where the nut was. First try to turn the bolt to try to break it loose. You may tear the bushings if it's stuck good enough and the rubber is rotted out. At that point you hammer the bolt out with a sledge or cut the head off.
Yikes, it looks really bad. I used to live in the mid-west so I can relate to that. The thought of seeing truck spraying salts on the roads still make me cringe & feel so sorry for all the vehicles there. I'm glad I live in the sunny Southern Cal now so I don't have to deal w/ that anymore. Anyway, I've recently replaced the strut rod's bushings on my 97 Lexus LS400 & I've found out the easiest way to remove the camber bolt is to remove it first before you remove the other end w/ the 2 studs. The reason is if you remove the other end first, the strut bar will twist then put pressure on the camber bolt, that's why you're having a hard time removing it. To re-install, I've found it's much easier to re-install the end w/ the 2 studs first because it's much harder to precisely line up the 2 studs into both holes w/ tight tolerance vs 1 hole at the other end via the bushing when the strut bar is under pressure. Some folks on here stated to use a vice grip or a wrench to twist the strut bar then force the 2 studs into the holes, not an easy task.
I'd be cleaning and painting some stuff under there, else someday could be driving down the road and something fall off or break that is critical to keeping the car on the road.
I'd be cleaning and painting some stuff under there, else someday could be driving down the road and something fall off or break that is critical to keeping the car on the road.
Yea, I would probably look at swapping the entire sway bar bracket to get rid of some of that rust.
05-06-17, 01:23 PM
Cannot pull out strut rod caster/camber cam bolt
