Suspension Bolts

[Turbo Juice]

I just want to hear some of your experiences with bolts on your suspension. Mainly the ones having to do with the struts and front control arms.

I want to know how many of you have broke many of the suspension bolts and how many have reused all the bolts when upgrading. i am on a tight budget but i am trying to judge whether or not it would be wise to go buy some new bolts from the dealer before i install\ or just hope nothing breaks so i can re-use the olds.


thanks

 

[SinEclipse]

well, i just did mine today and all i did was spray the bolts with wb40 and let it soak down. broke no bolts and i reused all of them. also you dont need to go to teh dealer to get the bolts, just go to home depot and find matching bolts.

 

[MackZ24]

You wanna talk frozen/broken bolts? Well, let me tell you. I live up here in Canada. And I purchased myself a nice 1991 Eagle Talon TSi AWD a little while back. Being as it's a project car, I decided that *everything* was coming off and getting spruced up. The body of the car is near mint, but the suspension underneath is a different story. I've been breaking bolts left, right and center! And keep in mind, this is even after spraying some of these things for days with different penetrating oils and heating with a torch before attempting to break them loose! Of course, some other bolts came out with ease!

I've been trying to find a place to get replacement bolts for different areas of the suspension without having to get bent over by Satan, but so far, no luck. I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult if I could find somewhere that gave the different thread pitches, lengths and strength ratings of each bolt, but I don't think that's documented anywhere. If you find anywhere else, be sure to let me know, and I'd even be interested in finding out how much Satan charges you for the bolts that you do buy. (PM me if you go this route!)

 

[DarthBulk]

You wanna talk frozen/broken bolts? Well, let me tell you. I live up here in Canada. And I purchased myself a nice 1991 Eagle Talon TSi AWD a little while back. Being as it's a project car, I decided that *everything* was coming off and getting spruced up. The body of the car is near mint, but the suspension underneath is a different story. I've been breaking bolts left, right and center! And keep in mind, this is even after spraying some of these things for days with different penetrating oils and heating with a torch before attempting to break them loose! Of course, some other bolts came out with ease!

I've been trying to find a place to get replacement bolts for different areas of the suspension without having to get bent over by Satan, but so far, no luck. I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult if I could find somewhere that gave the different thread pitches, lengths and strength ratings of each bolt, but I don't think that's documented anywhere. If you find anywhere else, be sure to let me know, and I'd even be interested in finding out how much Satan charges you for the bolts that you do buy. (PM me if you go this route!)

I've had good luck ordering bolts from Fastenal.
www.fastenal.com
They can get most any size you want, for decent prices. I usually go to one of their stores, but I think you can order them online too.

 

[MackZ24]

Thanks for the link DarthBulk, but being as I'm in Canada I can't just walk into one of the stores (never heard of the place until now) with a bolt and find a match. You don't happen to know anywhere to get details on any of the bolts on our DSM's do you? (Grade Ratings, Thread Pitches, etc.) If I could find that information I could order replacement bolts online without a problem.

 

[DarthBulk]

I don't have the size information for all the bolts, but just look at the head of your existing bolts to get the grade. All the bolts I replaced on my Talon had a number on the head which denotes the grade. In the suspension, I believe many of them were 10.9. To find the thread pitch, I just went to the hardware store, and bought a selection of metric nuts. I would use these as a gage on the bolts that I wanted to replace to get the thread pitch of that bolt. Then I just measured the length of the bolt in mm. That gave me all the information I needed to order the bolts from Fastenal. You will find that most bolts fall into just a few size categories, with length being the only variation. To order from Fastenal, I would just ask (for example) for a 10mm x 45mm x 1.25 thread pitch bolt in a 10.9 Grade, and they would have it cheaper than the Mitsubishi dealer

 

[MackZ24]

Thanks DarthBulk, since posting that last message of mine I had been doing some research and came up with sort of the same solution, with a bit of a twist. Rather than going into a store with the bolts to test different nuts on them, I'm just going to pick up a "thread gauge" and figure everything out from there. The only reason I was wondering if you had a way to find out the information on certain stock bolts was because a few of them are broken, and pieces lost, so I don't know what length most of them are supposed to be, but I should be able to figure that out if I don't break the ones on the other side! And yah, it looks like most of them are 10.9 grade, which makes sense in suspension!

 

[DarthBulk]

That sounds like a good plan...good luck! I know what you mean about breaking bolts and not having a complete bolt to compare too, also. I think I broke every single bolt when I was removing trim pieces, splash guards, etc. underneath my Talon. The tip of each bolt was rusted solid, and could not be backed out of the hole it was threaded into. Surprisingly, the car itself doesn't have rust on it.

 

[MackZ24]

Quite odd, it's the exact same thing with my car. There's only one tiny spot of rust where some water seems to have gotten stuck between the plastic at the bottom of the passenger rear quarter panel and the actual wheel well. I thought it was a pretty decent deal for $700 Canadian. (engine running but with cracked exhaust manifold.) Just didn't plan on such a hard time with the suspension bolts and everything underneath!!!

 

[Erok]

i bought this shell for 1100, no trany no motor, and its mint, then i get into the suspention, i pop off wheels and realize there arnt any axle nuts on front, and the rear nuts are turned into circles, about 27 1/2 mm instead of the factory 32mm, anyways, i just started working on it the other day, i cut rear nuts off with a cutting wheel, and i cant even knock the axle out of the hub, ive tried everything, pullers everything im going to have to take them to a shop and have them pressed out and probly destroy the bearing, anyways, i relise that the person before me had left the axles in the car when they pulled it, hmmmm... i go to knock out axles, again nothing but a mushroomed axle end, so i just pop bolt off upper contol arm, then the lower control arm/balljoints, ok, i go to pop off the lower control arm where it conects to the bottom of the strut housing, the nut and the bolt snap, and will not for the life and all of my strength give into a hammer and a flat round chizle, so, ok, i go to unscrew it with the other end (bolt head) its a 17mm, the bolt is so caroded that it strips instantly well, now im ####ed, i cant pound it out from either end, so i start prying at the fork like part of strut bottom, well i end up poping the lil arms off the bolt ends but bend out my fork so it is way wider, and now i have 2 broken bolts sticking out of my lower front aamr, that i cant beat out again either, so i go to disconect the bolt where it conects on the far end to the front crossmember, well the nut comes off but will not spin the bolt head, it is like fused in with the rubber and is almost elastic when i try to wrench on it it just goes right back into place, ####!!!!, heat, pbblaster, heatand pb at same time, nothing, i end up getting a 3 ft breaker bar on the end of the bolt and kick the shit out of it, crack there goes my breaker bar flying across my garage/and wow, now i own a cracked 17mm half inch craftsman socket, fcken craftsman, anyways, the bolt never budged and is still in the same spot. im screwed and am about to say ####it, i dont know what to do, next idea is go get some swivil impact sockets since impact wont fit straight on, and i broke both of my deep and shallow 17mm's last week, man this car must have been sitting in a yard since it was made 10 years ago, fcken piece of shit, if anyone has any ideas let me know if i can get that crossmember bolt off, so i can press out the one end, but i am oginflgknjflka goona freak out, any ideas let me know fellaz, please,
-=erik=-

 

[Turbo Juice]

well i did my suspension and the only thing i had to cut was one of the front endlinks. everything else i got off decently.

but as for your broken tools. the ones that are craftsman have a lifetime warranty. just go into sears and show them your broken tool and they will give you a new one on the spot.

 

[Kokomo]

A lot of bolts will pretty much never come out unless you heat them. Propane torch is your friend. If you don't care about reusing the bolt, heat the fastener until it's good and hot, a dull orange color so it burns the rust and contaminants off then throw water at it. The quick quench will make the fastener more brittle so I usually used just heat.

To get one of my lower control arm bolts out, I took a big giant drill with a long @$$ bit and drilled it clean through. The heat of the drilling along with how weak the bolt got after it was drilled thoroughly allowed me to get it out pretty easy.