HELP! Need some front shock/coil removal magic

[danthemanx07]

I am in the middle of FINALLY getting my lift on and have hit a snag. One of the three upper shock retaining bolts is stuck. As luck would have it, it is the one back up against the inner fender, and it is situated such that when I put a 6 point box wrench over it, I can't get a breaker bar over it or a mini sledge behind it.

Anyone got any magic that can help me get this last nut free??

I have yanked and strained without a budge. It is pretty tight in there for an angle grinder. Would that nut just laugh at a Dremel with a cut-off wheel?? That is the only tool I can think of that will fit in there. An open flame under there looks dicey with the abs wires running behind the bolt and the other goodies nearby. I am open to whatever will work. I have already ordered new top mounts because the one I pulled off the other side was really eaten up with rust, so I dont need to worry about damaging the other bolts.

HELP! My Tundra coils and Bilsteins are begging to go on. :mad2:

 

[AZTOY]

Do you have a pic. Did you disconnect the sway bar. The wheel should droop enough for the coilover to slide out. Apply upward leverage to the upper a-arm?

 

[TCMach]

[MENTION=84972]danthemanx07[/MENTION]This may work I had to do it with mine. Put the wrench on and then get a 2' piece of tubing that slides onto the wrench and use it as a cheater bar. This may be confusing but google image search "cheater bar for wrench" and you'll get my idea.

 

[PitbullRescuer]

Put a box (closed) wrench on the nut, and pull like a MFer. It'll come loose. Some WD-40, PB Blaster or something like that wont hurt either.

 

[cj80cruiser]

I used a ratchet wrench and the 2" square end of my hitch (that I borrowed from my receiver) to get the driverside top nut off you speak of. I say the driverside specifically because it created the angle needed to miss the fender and turn the nut counter clockwise. The passenger side was easy with my regular cheater bar.

 

[rjaudi]

I dremeled the back nut off mine. I believe I cut straight down slicing the nut in half.

 

[KidVermicious]

Stick another wrench on the end as a cheater bar, and put your back into it. It'll come free or you'll snap the bolt, either way it'll come off.

I assume you hit it with PB Blast or something? When I know I'm going to run into a stuck bolt, I like to hit once or twice a day for at least a couple days before I get busy. Its great stuff but you got to give it time to work.

The dremel will work too. You might go through a couple cutoff wheels in the process, but it'll cut.

 

[danthemanx07]

Thanks for the replies fellas.

I used a cheater bar to get all of the other ones off, even the similarly situated one on the passenger side. The problem with this side is that when the wrench is on the nut, there are only a few inches, if that, between the end of the wrench and the inner fender well. The tight space combined with the fact that the wrench is also facing the front inner fender well defeats any ability to use a cheater or breaker bar. The is also less than an inch between the top of the bolt and the inner fender well, so there is no way to get a socket and a ratchet over it.

I have been hitting it with good ole' PB for a few days, and I am sure it helped with all the other ones. This one is just unbreakable it seems.

I am glad to hear that the Dremel did work. I will get a picture up when I get back from class to show y'all what I am working with. If it doesn't budge at that time, it will feel the wrath of the Dremel tool and cutoff wheel.

EDIT: For those suggesting it could come out with droop, it won't come out until the all of the top mounting plate nuts are free. The passenger side assembly slid out fine when the nuts were off. Sorry if my original post was confusing. Pictures would have been good...

 

[shadow247]

Yeah I think your best bet is to just use a Dremel to cut that sucker off. I fought my sway bar links for about 20 minutes before I just busted out the dremel and cut them off. It took about an hour per side to cut everything off, so you could probably get the bolt cut off in 20 minutes or so.

 

[I_bRAD]

Heat!

The ABS wire can be detached and moved out of the way and just get some sheet metal and make up a heat shield. Worked like a charm on mine.

 

[danthemanx07]

Well, the wrenching gods have smiled upon me for a moment today.

After I pulled out the extension cord and dremel I decided to give the nut one last chance to come peacefully. With a hernia inducing strain, it gave. I first thought that I just twist the bolt in two, but amazingly the nut gave and not the stud.

Sweet!

The new top plates will not be in vain, the old ones were terribly rusted. I am not sure I would feel safe putting them on top of the new springs anyway.

Waiting on UPS to deliver them now. I should have things back together tonight or tomorrow and will get some pictures up of the new look.

Thanks for all the help folks!

 

[afg10000]

ditto, rjaudi. we had to dremel straight down that little bastard. two of the tophat bolts starting spinning before the nuts came loose, effectively meaning the entire tophat was worthless. Luckily, autozone had one set of new OEM tophats. Had to cut the damn dampening bolts off, too. I would say friends, we learned some valuable lessons that day -

 

[danthemanx07]

ditto, rjaudi. we had to dremel straight down that little bastard. two of the tophat bolts starting spinning before the nuts came loose, effectively meaning the entire tophat was worthless. Luckily, autozone had one set of new OEM tophats. Had to cut the damn dampening bolts off, too. I would say friends, we learned some valuable lessons that day -

Haha. I am glad that it did not come to that. I did have to cut the shocks out of the coils too though to get to the isolator.

I am still not as lucky as you though. There wasn't an auto parts store in the New Orleans area that had them in stock. Thank god for Amazon. Found some with over night shipping at the same price as anything local would have been if they were in stock.

 

[afg10000]

I'm not entirely sure that anyone (taco or 4runner) has been able to have a somewhat pain/problem free experience doing this procedure on their first go. I know there are tons of posts about the coilovers being a PITA. Maybe there should be an all-in-one sticky regarding this task. There seems to be so many problems and creative solutions that so many different people have come up with. In retrospect, I think Toytecs ultimate adjustables is the easiest and most sure fire way to go around most headaches. Not everyone wants to drop that scrill or simply prefers a different set-up. Always lessons learned -glad you got them on safely -