drive axle nightmares...

**jankaroni** · 11-22-2008 06:50 AM

[Begin rant/] So I am about to take a trip to NC about a 7 hour trip from me in NJ. I have my car on the lift at work and decide to look it over before the trip and everything is good....except my outer CV joint boot is torn. No big deal right? I wish. My plan was come into work the next morning a lil early and pull it out and send it out to get a new boot put on for 25 bucks. I don't know if it was just my luck, but that main axle bolt wouldn't come out for its life, I had a 260lb guy with a 4 foot breaker bar on it and it was laughing at him. Save your self the trouble and just buy a new bearing and a new axle (since they are extremely cheap) and take a torch and heat the piss out of the main bolt and it will come back off, it will save you about an hour of messing with the bolt and trying to get it out because it is pretty much impossible otherwise. All in all it worked out for me in the long run because I got a rebuilt axle for 62 bucks and a new bearing for 120, however, me and the 2 mechanics that were trying to help me out said that was by far, the WORST axle to get out they had ever seen. [End Rant/]

**Siena** · 11-22-2008 07:18 AM

That's odd - I take it you're referring to the central bolt in the hub?

Seeing as the threads are in constant contact with the thick grease the axle joints are filled with, I'd have thought they'd be easy to undo.

I've never had an axle bolt fail to come undone. On earlier B2/B3/B4 cars, yes. But these have a nut, rather than a bolt, and the exposed threads on the nose of the axle joint tends to get rusty.

You must have just been unlucky, and had the misfortune to wrestle with a B5 that bit back.

**jankaroni** · 11-22-2008 07:32 AM

mine didn't have a nut, mine had a a bolt that was about 4 inches long with a big allen key head on it

**zrowcool** · 11-22-2008 08:05 AM

use some penetrating oil and more leverage. mine took a little bit put it came out when i got a long cheater bar

**jankaroni** · 11-22-2008 08:13 AM

haha, i had penetrating oil on it and actually put penetrating oil on it and let it sit for like 2 hours, and ass far as a longer bar goes....the one we had was 4 feet long. I will put it this way, we twisted off 4 allen key sockets before we got it out if that tells you anything haha as soon as we heated it up cherry red it came out with absolutely no effort, however the bad part of heating it up is you toast the inner bearing and have to replace it

**UpstateNYA4** · 11-22-2008 09:29 PM

Originally Posted by zrowcool

use some penetrating oil and more leverage. mine took a little bit put it came out when i got a long cheater bar

Agreed on that - use Deep Creep or something to that effect and let it penetrate for awhile. Maybe 2-3 applications over an hour's time and it should come right out.

**Scrampa** · 11-22-2008 09:46 PM

That's funny; I've done countless cv boots using my 1/2" 30 some odd inch breaker bar to take the bolts out.

Maybe your bolt was unusually rusty (or severely overtightened at one point).

**jankaroni** · 11-23-2008 06:21 AM

Originally Posted by Scrampa

That's funny; I've done countless cv boots using my 1/2" 30 some odd inch breaker bar to take the bolts out.

Maybe your bolt was unusually rusty (or severely overtightened at one point).

That's what I was thinking too, it seemed like it was seized really because once it broke loose it came right out by hand. All in all it worked out in the long run for me I did a little better job with it due to the bolt not coming out without heat. Now I have a new drive axle and a new wheel bearing up there so its all good