P-on

I stripped a CV bolt with the star socket. What a bitch. She's sitting there at about 25 ft/lbs and I'd rather try to take it out rather than leave it alone to deal with later. The last damn bolt too and now I'm pee'd off.

Any suggestions? I can't get a grip with vise grips. Thanks ahead of time.

jim944s2

Man, that sucks! I suppose you could very carefully drill the head off and then take the others out, the cv should come loose and I would expect the bolt to be finger loose at that point.
Doesn't KD make a bigger size of star socket?, buy one of those or similar and hammer it into the bolt head? (with additional help of vice grips?).
Have someone rotate the wheel w/ you under there, maybe there's a spot at which vice grips would work?
Ya know, those are notorious for needing re-torquing after some driving, maybe leave it for a month, then see if it loosens enough to get it out at that time. I've heard of them being finger loose after a month or two.

P-on

Thanks Jim

I stripped it tightening it by the way, not loosening it. I blame the short star tool Paragon sold me, and I know there is a long splined one around but I couldn't find it.

I figured I have two choices: I can screw around with this thing...or leave it and the next time they need to be removed pay someone to do it. Certain jobs I hate, this was one of them.

jim944s2

If the splines on the tool you used weren't long enough, that means there's some 'star-spline' still left in there, perhaps the longer tool would allow extraction? I originally bought my star tool from 'westbay auto' to do half shafts on my VW Scirocco, the tool is made by KD and should be readily available. Those star bolts are the same as in an early 80's Scirocco, btw.

Toolmaster

Or you could hammer a proper size allen head in there, and remove it that way.

Some have used epoxy and a suitable throw-away allen wrench or such tool.

An easy out should also remove it in short order...

This usually is an easy one to remove.

HTH!

slang

Buy the new remover from Sears. I hear they work great, and it doesn't depend on how stripped the "socket" is.