Front driveshaft bolt stripped any ideas??

[Hunz]

hi guys I have a 98 explorer 4wd and I was taking off the front driveshaft to get the t case off and two of the bolts I can't get off. there are 4 bolts two of which i got off, and the other two are stripped. The bolts have a spot to use a star bit, the two stubborn bolts were so tight that they broke the two star bits I have. you can barely get a wrench on them , so I did and stripped those too. A socket will not go on which would be ideal, Any ideas?

 

[techieman33]

Go get another t-30 torx bit

 

[Hunz]

I have already broken two of them and those two suckers won't budge, I turned them so hard they both sheared straight off, I sprayed the bolts down with wd-40 too

 

[techieman33]

Use pb blaster, not wd-40. wd-40 is not a penetrating oil so it's not really going to help. You could try heating them up with a torch, but be careful with the u-joint right there.

 

[TB]

How in THE HELL do you get this front driveshaft off the pinion flange?!?!?!? I've tried the small open end wrench...nothing, the torx bit, started twisting my bit on one and began stripping the bolt on the others. I've DRENCHED these things down on the bolt head side and behind in the open threads with PB and Liquid wrench for 3 days now.

I've whacked it with a small hammer, i've slammed it with a big hammer....it's not budging.

What are my options? Cut off wheel to the 2 straps, remove the shaft, then hope a socket will pull the bolts out????

 

[Hunz]

I ended up giving up on pulling the front driveshaft off. The one thing i did think of was to grind the bolts off and then use a broken bolt extractor to remove the remains of the threads still in the pinion flange. For install you would just need to find some new compatible bolts.

 

[IZwack]

Techie mentioned heat - that would be a good start.

Last resort:
Cut the bolt heads off, remove the driveshaft, remove the pinion yoke and replace with a new one. This shouldnt take too long.

 

[TB]

I ended up using an "impact driver" thing. Kinda like a punch, but your bit in the end of it, then strike the **** out of it with a hammer and it turns slightly when being struck.

After about 10 whacks on each bolt they slowly broke free. To replace theose POS's, I just used a strap kit for a JEEP/Dana 35 that uses actual socket accessible bolts for 5$

That pinion seal was a ***** to get out to, but after about 15 minutes of pryin' it came out too.

MUCH better repair!!