terbiumactivated

l use a dremel cut off wheel to slot bolts, if you go that route be mindful of how to cut it for the maximum leverage angle and twist radius. It goes without saying if you haven't been soaking it with something like breakfree start doing that too. I've never had much luck with needle nose vise grips for a job like this. The original design vise grips are better for this, they make all sizes I have several, the mini would be perfect for a job like this and they are very inexpensive.

PorscheAddict

Lots of good suggestions in here (I would use PB Blaster or breakfree for sure too, as Terbium noted), but holy crap these cars require half shaft removal to install coilovers? Or was that just do to the end link failure? I have never seen a car that required that. Good luck with the removal.

jscott82

I'm new to Caymans, (had a 993 for a long time)... My first project was removing the old shocks. Ya.. you have to remove the half shafts and half of the control arms to get the suspension to droop enough to get the shock out. Its the most ridiculous / poor design I've seen...

And I would not recommend PB blaster, these bolts aren't rusted or siezed. I assume they were over-torqued or just a crappy wrench was used to removed them. Oil wont make it any easier to remove, and it will cause over-torque when he puts new bolts back in.

extanker

^^^^^^^

PorscheAddict

Thanks. Wow, that makes me a lot less excited to DIY some coilovers in the near future. These cars are not fun to work on (they make up for it in driving).

extanker

and as i said before put all the bolts back in so to relieve a little load on the bad bolt

Alan C.

I Club Raced a 993 for a few years and I never took the half shafts out when changing shocks. Did take the links out.

If you can get a slot cut in the bolt head a hand held impact driver might free it.

jscott82

Do you still race?

I sold the 993 thinking I was done with racing... Now I'm building a spec Cayman, I guess I wasn't done...

Agree, 993 replacing shocks was easy (the way it should be).

marccongdon

Get a screw extractor and drill it to the next size up from that. Subarus's have cam gears that get the same problem and I swear I have to do that on every other engine I rebuild.

Alan C.

Gave up racing 6 spine surgeries ago.

MMMMalex

Gonna tow her to a shop tomorrow. Thanks for all suggestions. I’ve pretty much tried all of the suggestions except cutting off the head (worried it might be tough to get the remainder of the bolt out) and welding.

Yabo

Too late now, but if no one else mentioned its usually good to put all the other bolts back in and torque them down, by having them all out but that one it was likely putting more pressure on it.

terbiumactivated

Actually, props where props are due, Extanker gave this same advise early on..

MMMMalex

Quick update. Shop ended up grinding down a Torx 55 to a Torx "52.5" and using that to get the bolt off.



Which allowed me to proceed with the original issue: bracket on shock holding the end link snapped. Shock has now been shipped out to KW.

extanker

outstanding