3 months ago when putting on my Kybs and Tein springs i was too lazy to put Anti-Sieze on my LCA bolts..... Well now im paying for it. I broke all 3 bolts on the passenger side trying to put my new coilovers and LCAs on.

My question is how would you go about getting these out? I was gonna try a easy-out but had so many on that idea so i just returned them to the store. I heard they break very easy. Then i thought about drilling and retapping but eh.... Also the idea of grinding lose the bolt tac welded to the fram of the car and just replacing the whole thing with a nut,bolt, lock washer setup.

Im in a disaray of what to do. Any REAL suggestion to someone this has happened to before. I need some hands on advice basicly someone who says "well when i did it"


thanks guys

 

My mind is drawing a blank. What are LCAs?

 

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Lower control arms. Some people also call them "locator arms".

 

I came across this same problem in the front and back of my car. What a pain in my ******* *** that **** was.

I'm drawing a blank though, aren't there only two bolts that go through the lower control arm?

Unless you can come up with a picture or better description this is my suggestion. Get ready to cut stuff.

Balljoint nut should come off so this is no problem. As for the other 2 bolts though, they usually break because they are frozen inside the inner sleeve of the bushing. This is where the cutting comes in to play.

The best way to do this and keep the subframe intact is to cut through the control arm itself and buy a new one. People will say that you can get in between the control arm and the subframe, but I think that's just a pain in the *** and not worth the risk of saving a couple of bucks.

First thing you want to do is cut the arm free from the shock wishbone. I think this explains itself. You should be able to figure it out, if not just ask.

If you are looking at the control arm on the pass side, the nut on the subframe should be on the left side(towards the rear of the car). First cut you should make should be a little bit left of the center through the control arm. I mean cut it as if you are trying to cut the bolt that goes through it in half. Depending on where the bolt is broken you might be able to pull most of the control arm out of the way leaving a little bit of bushing/bolt/arm still in between the subframe. At this point I choose to light the little remaining bit of rubber on fire and let it burn for a little bit so that I can pull that little chunk of remaining arm off and leave just the bushing sleeve and a little rubber left.

Now you have to turn out the bolt. Just grab it with vice grips and try to turn it out it should come and you should have enough room to turn it out if you cut off enough of the arm . If it doesn't want to turn out, then you will need to heat the nut and try to turn it out again.

Sorry it is a long explanation, but feel free to ask me questions if you don't understand something.

If the bolts aren't seized to the inner bushing sleeve than just ignore this novel I just typed.