Imo000

Hack or no hack.....Considering the two parts are toast anyways, I think this is and EXCELLENT idea. You have nothing to loose by doing this either. $hit, it problby will hold up for years to come.

thal

ah, it's only an excellent idea until I have to do the next repair. then I will be smacking my head against the closest brick wall until unconscious.

thal

hit a little snag getting the rear axle cross member removed. everything's loose, the trans is hanging from some chain, all i need to do is loosen the lower control arm bolts. but...

the lower control arm bolts seem frozen. i've been soaking them with PB blaster and they are not budging with a 12" and 18" breaker bar. I'm wondering if the rubber is seized to the bolts. i'm a little concerned that getting too aggressive could pull the car off a jackstand. any suggestions would be appreciated.

Landseer

Can you show a picture?

I never take lower control arms off, instead, remove cross-member and hubs and shocks/springs as a single unit. What is preventing that? Insufficient body height?

Imo000

How do you figure that? The two parts are garbage anyways.

Imo000

Use and impact gun, that will get those bolts out. It did for me.

thal

Chris,

Here's one of the bolts I am referring to, 19mm. I thought this was called the lower control arm, it's certainly possible I'm calling it something incorrect, but they are attached to the rear axle cross member. In Section 42, (rear wheel suspension, axle shaft), volume 4 of the WSM, calls them the toe eccentric bolts.

Landseer

OK, got it, sorry.

I use a well-seated close ended wrench and small 5 lb hammer to impact the nuts free. Can't get on them with much else.

Mike Frye

+1, I think this is the way it's described in the WSM.

Landseer

He was talking about the frontmost eccentrics, my fault.

thal

OK. Are they torqued that high? or is it just that they get froze in place against the rubber?

Anyways, thanks for the advice, I'll give that a try.

Mike Frye

Keith,

You won't be able to budge that eccentric, but you should be able to get the nut on the back of it loose. The front is just for counterholding.

Looks like it slid some, it should be marked and replaced in the same place it was before. You may have to get an alignment when you're done if it's moved any. Same with the upper crossmember bolts at the top of the wheel arches. It says to mark the location but mine only went back in one position so that may not be as critical (or I may just be lucky, but that's not likely).

thal

Thanks Mike.

Yep, it slid attempting to loosen. It looked like I had more room to work from the bolt side rather than the nut side, so that's why I did what I did. I did mark, but agree that an alignment is likely required after the repair.

Landseer

120 Nm or 87 ftlb

Tight enough.
The part under the nut is on a shoulder on the bolt so it will only compress so far.

mrdieseldude

If you decide to keep the car, you can file a non-op certificate on it ($18.00 in CA, YMMV). With the car legally registered as non-op, no insurance is required and neither is yearly registration (other than the yearly non-op renewal). Just a thought...