Replacing the wheel bearing on my Mondeo (which comes as one unit) I have a 18mm hole about 2" deep to get to some T50 bolts.
I've started to get all 4 off (ie they are about 15mm of 50mm out, so not "frozen") but the force required is rediculous and I've managed to mangle the T50 hole quite a bit.
I've sprayed them liberally with WD40 and have been left overnight and I'm now contemplating how to get the last 30mm out?
Impact drivers are good to start frozen bolts, any good to continue trying to get these out?
Use splines to dig into the remains of the bolt and hope to get it out?
Drill the bolts out, can I then just ream out the thread or is it impossible to get that level of accuracy?
I presume it's not safe to helicoil the load area for wheel bearings.
Any ideas out there?
If you drill the heads off will the assembly come apart giving you better access to the shafts of the bolts - which you could then get a grip on with mole grips or something and / or get more penetrating oil on them?
If the bolts are moving wind them half a turn in, one turn out and keep repeating - might help free them.
Wind them in and out with liberal applications of lube, they'll come eventually you just gotta work the threads a bit
You can try penetrating oil overnight, if there is enough head left to get them moving then do as TJ says. Another way is to tighten slightly to begin to break any corrosion . Have you tried putting the torx driver in and whacking it with a hammer, this often helps.
If you strip the torx you can also try a centre punch to try and get things moving if you can get it in in the first place. Otherwise drill the heads off but make sure you'll be able to get the remains of the bolts out after!
Swearing loudly also helps 😀
I can cut the heads off (the 18mm gap is an access port in the wheel stud holder allowing me access to the heads pretty well to cut them off).
Going to struggle to get then movinging in and out, as I said the force required is massive and I'm not too sure the T50 will hold up to much more (a fella on the estate is bringing a snapon one home with him and a proper breaker bar). I can't see getting enough force on molgrips to be able to rotate what the socket set can't.
Anything better than wd40 I can use?
plus gas
Cheers - will hunt some down and keep you updated tonight.
Can you heat the area with a blowtocrh or is it too near stuff that can melt?
+1 for plus gas, excellent stuff
Well that was a disaster...
Couldn't get plusgas (at such shot notice), so used 3in1 equivalent.
Used liberally, and I can work 2 of the 4 bolts in and out quite easily now but only to the point where they jam fast.
In the process all 4 torx points are buggered.
So it looks like I'm sawing the heads off tomorrow morning and then going at them with the impact driver to see what happens then.
/me goes to price up a new lower swing arm.
Stud extractor,decent hardware or motorfactors should have them.
Get a Hardened steel drill bit ,drill down the middle of the torx bolt then use the required stud extractor.
Should work (in theory:-))
Heating the surrounding area might help, they could have threadlock on them.
done, finally..... well kinda.
took the heads off all 4, the 2 moving ones i screwed in and through as they were not coming out.
the last 2 i ended up drilling out with an 8mm metal drill bit, then using a 10mm tap to ream it out.
unfortunately the car is making the same grinding noise (the bearing did need sorting as it rocked side to side) so either the other side needs doing too, or the brakes need looking at.....
cock.