2000 civic. If my rear LCA bolts are seized and I have to cut them out with a sawsall, I anticipate having to break off the nuts that are welded to the frame (Inner LCA bolt) and the trailing arm (outer LCA bolt).

Will removing those nuts seriously mess up my alignment or cause any other problems?

am replacing shocks so I dont care about the weld nuts on those.

and I have brand new LCA's waiting to go in.

 

those bolts will get seized up mine did too i actually had to bend my lca and all this stuff i evenused a torch to heat them up nothing so get ready for some new LCA if they are seized up in there means that ur bushings are going baad

 

Yes, I'm in the midwest, I haven't even touched it yet and I know they'll be seized, hence the $150 spent on new LCA's and bolts..... not to mention a good way to rationalize to my wife I need a nice dewalt cordless sawsall..haha

 

hehe just be careful and try to ue a very big pipe for torque impact guns dont always have the power you need

 

Mine were seized, best bet it getting as much out as you can and drilling the rest out. It will take awhile but that's what I did

 

I see, so you're a proponent of instant bolt head snap.

Dallas, yea I'm going to try the drilling route first, but I never seem to be able to center the bit well enough not to damage the receiving nut.

I guess my basic question is what happens if I have to replace those welded receiving nuts? They're not captive (which is a good thing), but are they centered in any special way that will permanently screw up my alignment?

 

Have you tried soaking them in some good penetrating fluid? AreoKroil works great!

Try an impact if you have one. Short burst, do not just hold on the impact, you'll break the bolt.

 

Yea, I've been soaking them with PB all week, though I doubt it will do much good anyway. For some reason I dont have AreoKroil around here.

 

Sometimes it's a bit hard to get a hold of.

But no, breaking those bolts won't impact your alignment at all. I would still recommend going in for an alignment after everything is in the car though.

 

I soaked mine with silikroil almost every day for a couple weeks and it
did absolutely nothing. I ended up drilling them out, grinding off the
welded nuts and using regular nuts.

If you hit them with a torch some may break free. But don't burn the rubber.


This stuff is ideal to use on suspension bolts:

 

Cool, as long as there's nothing wrong with replacing the weld nuts, then it seems like that's the easier route to go. Just put a breaker bar on those, twist off, cut bolts and move on. The 11 year old LCA's had a good life, easier just to replace them....and still way cheaper than taking it to a shop.

 

Noithing wrong with that at all. Some people just break them and stick some lock nuts on the ends, OR some people sometimes weld new nuts on there.

I would try and weld them, just for ease of removal/ re-installation

 

I wonder why they're tacked on there in the first place. Seems like a foolish design. This is why I thought they were aligning the LCA bushings in the frame and trailing arm holes.

 

Easy wrenching. The main reason I still own these things.

 

if they are seized and they are very stubborn they will snap reguardless i just replaced mine with bolts from the Dealership