Stuck w/o a Truck

[Naasau]

Well, I'm not all that great at searching these sites yet so my answer might be lurking at some forgotten location in here somewhere. If thats the case, Sorry. Anyway, here's my problem.

I've been driving for a while now with the oddest noises coming from my front axle, but only while driving, and my 4x4 makes it quite a bit worse. Turns out that my the inner and outer bearings of both hubs are shot as well as the FL lower ball joint. Here's where my problems started. I disassembled my FL wheel assembly and got the brake rotor off, easy. I can't seem to get the inner bearings out of it so some advise there would be great. The big problem, however, is that the upper clamp bolt? is totally stripped out, and was when I took the tire off; and the lower bolt refuses to move, and not for lack of trying. I've used an obscene ammount of overt force(including but not limited to a very large hammer), leverage, heat, and liquid wrench to try to loosen the 15/16" nut head, but to no avail. I gave up for the night and soaked the evil thing in liquid wrench for the morning, but i'm honistly worried about stripping this thing out b/c of how hard i've been pushing my open end wrench.

I'm honistly not even sure that i'm going about this in the right way at all b/c i'm following the Haynes guide manual, not a factory service manual. (i know, i'll get one as soon as i can afford to.)

Here's some pics of my dillema, hope it helps. (i downgraded bitrate, so if you need zoom-in's, my camera is badass.

Please help if ya can, and any semi-unrelated advice is also more than welcome.


What I've gotten apart so far.


The Evil rusty Nut.


Rusty Nut with Open end wrench.


Upper clamp bolt (12pt and totally toasted when i found it.)
...what i wouldn't give for a arc welder right now.

 

[pope_face]

IIRC, the bearing can't be removed on your own... I think you have to take it to a machine shop and get it pressed out. As for the bolts, I would suggest getting a tap kit or something of the sort and just drill out out... that's likely the easiest thing to do. Otherwise... more brute force or replace the components that are siezed together. Anyone else?

Fil

 

[chilly_moose]

Don't be afraid to manhandle that beast. If it breaks, I have the parts on my parts explorer that you can have for really cheap. Show that truck who's BOSS.

 

[Naasau]

Got it Done

Finally got the top bolt with some gentle coersion and a torch. The bottom one was easy as well once I was able to get the box end of the wrench over it. I just had to pull the drive shaft out to do it.... which was really easy once I saw that I could do it without breaking something.

After that I was able to pack the new bearings and get the ball joints pressed, Then I put it all back together. (oh, and my beast did need just a bit more direct attention. Thanks guys!)

 

[Tony H]

Glas d you got it.

Just read the thread. the first thing I wondered was " Why didn't he pull the Axle." I always do.
I guess enough heat loosens anything. I have used the 'Smoke Wrench' on many a rusted bolt