Rear-only Aspire swap questions.

[TominMO]

Every job takes twice as long as you estimated....even when you take this law into account!

[Larry Hampton]

You're going thru bearings, are you also going thru tires? One of my spindles was bent on my first Festy, but the bearings were okay.

[Spike]

You're going thru bearings, are you also going thru tires? One of my spindles was bent on my first Festy, but the bearings were okay.

Just bearings. I have a bad alignment (cv axle was going out, so never got it aligned after front suspension work.. ), but have a total of 17k on this set (very uneven tread), with a good 4-5k left on 'em.

Sprayed the strut bolts earlier, and tried to move them with just a ratchet (with no luck, of course! :p), so I'm going to borrow a breaker bar from a friend.

[Spike]

UPDATE:

I've been spraying/hammering those darn things all week. I couldn't access a breaker bar, but I've been using a decent ratchet + cheater pipe. Won't budge. I did hear slight cracking the last time, though.. so I stopped.

Going to a welder tomorrow, with new bolts in-hand. Hope he can get them off.

[Bert]

UPDATE:

I've been spraying/hammering those darn things all week. I couldn't access a breaker bar, but I've been using a decent ratchet + cheater pipe. Won't budge. I did hear slight cracking the last time, though.. so I stopped.

Going to a welder tomorrow, with new bolts in-hand. Hope he can get them off.

Stay tuned to the saga of frozen strut bolts! When you get everything sorted I would think you are going to rub anti-seize or grease all over the bolt and inside the shock absorber sleeve. Nothing worse than not being able to get a part loose that you distinctly recall having put in/on yourself not that long before. When that happens you can't curse anybody but yourself!

[Spike]

No worries, I bought a nice little silver bottle of anti-seize a few days ago.

[Christ]

If you want to make everything easy, work on one bolt at a time.

Work the lower shock mounting bolts out, and if they're good, anti-seize them and put them back in.

Then work on each of the 3 mounting bolts on each side (body mounts). IIRC, you can see the other end of the bolt if you flip the seat up and pull the carpeting, which will allow you to spray it from both ends. Same deal here... work them loose, replace if necessary, anti-seize and put back in.

By doing this, when you get the time to change it, you'll already know exactly what you're facing, and everything should already be undone and ready to go once, so you don't have to worry about the last bolt being stuck in place and rounding off, forcing you to rent a car for 2 weeks until you can recommission your own "trusty" vehicle. (Don't ask, please...)

Get yourself a MAPP gas bottle torch from Lowes or a hardware store. Keep the head when the bottle's empty, and start using it with camp-fuel propane bottles. ANY heat is better than nothing.

When you heat something, try to heat whatever's around it instead of the fastener directly. You want the metal around it to expand and heat the threads in the process.

It's also a good idea if you have them to run a tap through all the weld-nut threads to clean them out. Put grease on the tap and run it through 2-3 times.

If you don't have a tap, sacrifice one bolt for each size and use an angle grinder to grind 3-4 pockets from the end of the threads up about half way of the bolt shaft. Put a nut on it first to clear burrs once you're done, and then file the threads at the new pockets to a clean taper. It's not perfect, but it works to clean rust/debris from threads. Keep 'em in your box after that. Never know what else they'll work for.

[MasterTec]

The problem with these bottom bolts is not that they get seized in the threads.. it's that they get seized into the metal sleeve inside of the strut bushing.

So basically when you try to turn the bolt the sleeve is turning with the bolt and it "winds" up the rubber bushing. This eats up the torque you apply (and absorbs any vibration created by an impact) making it extremely difficult to remove.

In my case I used an acetylene torch to cut through the rubber bushing and the sleeve and then the bolts came right out! I was actually able to clean up the original bolts, apply anti-seize and reuse them with the new struts!

If you have a dremel tool handy you can simply use that to cut through the bushing and the sleeve. Once pressure is off of the bolt it should come right out...

[Christ]

The problem with these bottom bolts is not that they get seized in the threads.. it's that they get seized into the metal sleeve inside of the strut bushing.

Right. My point was that you can find out if that's the case before you attempt to tackle the whole job if you work on one section at a time, get it freed up, and replace it as necessary, so that when you go to actually do the swap, you don't have this problem holding you up.

[Spike]

Uhh.. good and bad UPDATE:

Putting Aspire rear on the back shelf for now.. I'll start a thread tomorrow explaining why..

But, I have only one thing to say!

BECAUSE RACECAR.

Please check back tomorrow for further developments. After I get off work. :p