Sway bar bolts stuck! (IPD)

[Jorge-789995]

Greetings,

I have another unique issue with the car. I never seem to come across the easy ones. I am attempting to replace the rear sway bar bushings on my IPD sway bar. The bar was installed maybe 6-7 years ago. I successfully replaced the fronts bushings, but the rears have turned into a nightmare.

See attached photos. The aluminum subframe has 2 protrusions that hold the sway bar. There is a hole in these that a bolt goes through to secure the bushings. The hole is NOT threaded. Both my bolts are stuck - probably corroded in place and will not budge. I think this is called galvanic corrosion and is due to the steel bolt in close proximity to the aluminum subframe in the presence of an electrolyte like road salt. I'm no expert, but that is my take on the cause. I assume that the IPD bolts were not coated/plated to the same standard as the original Volvo bolts and now I have this problem. I am probably not the only one, but it's possible others have not tried to replace the bushings yet.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to proceed? I have tried PB Blaster, heat - Map gas torch, and now a ball joint press. As you can see, the hear of the bolt is now gone. I broke a socket on one of these early on. Nothing seems to more it and it just laughs at me. Next step is to get a thicker piece of metal and try the ball joint press again.

At what point to I start to damage the aluminum with the press? You can see I started the bend the steel bar used to push on the bolt.

I may have to start drilling them out, but until then, I would like to remove them.

As a worst case scenario, does anyone have directions on how to drop the rear subframe? I'm mainly interested in how to deal with all the fuel related items above the subframe.

thanks,

Keith

660966106611

[billr99]

Wow, that looks really ugly. I have to say that when I changed out my original bushings the bolts came right out despite years of use in Northern Ontario and 6 years of sitting out here in salt air. I'm sure you really don't care to hear all that so as a suggestion, you might want to try Deep Creep (available at NAPA?). I find that it works way better than PB Blaster with the kind of galvanic corrosion we see here. Don't know why, but it seems to do a better job at penetrating around the rusted bolts than the other stuff does and I seem to have tried them all at one time or another. Soak it really well with DC and let it sit for a day or two. It has worked every time for me and I've had some really ugly rust-ups (or at least I thought I had until I saw your situation). I wouldn't worry too much about damaging the aluminum bosses as they are pretty substantial and not being threaded helps. Finally, if you have an air hammer you might be able to get it and an appropriate bit up in there so that you could grab enough of the bolt to break it loose.

I'm sure that you have already figured this out, but next time liberally coat any steel bolt going into aluminum with copper-based or marine-grade non-metallic anti-seize. Don't use that aluminum-based stuff that Loctite sells as it only makes the situation worse. I've found down here that the non-metallic stuff really works well and especially on stainless steel going into aluminum. The fishermen and yacht folks around here use it a lot on their marine fittings and I've found when I used it restoring my aluminum-bodied Defender that it really worked a treat, perhaps better than the copper-based stuff. In any event, in highly corrosive environments don't rely on the OEM or normal zinc-plated coatings on the bolts to hold up over a long haul.

Good Luck,

Bill

[Scopeman]

I think you will have to carefully drill it out. Patience, good quality drills are required.

[vtl]

Heat the bolt with a blowtorch and tap it out while it's hot. Give it a few tries, cooling down bolt with penetrating oil between tries.

Also the bolt may be bent... Once I had to cut sway bar end link nut with Dremel tool, because the bolt was slightly bent.

[Xheart]

Cut off the stud at each end, and then drill it.
Start out with 3/8 size bit for the first hole, then incrementally increase the bit size for a better control and fit of hole size.
One hour max with good drill bit and plenty of oil.

[2002V70XC]

jeez! that's an ugly thing to look at! Did you manage to get it out and put the new one in? I'm planning to replace just the bushing on mine but now I'll have to look for replacement bolts to make sure. Do you have the size of that bolt?

[Jorge-789995]

Do you have the size of that bolt?

It's 11mm in diameter, about 56mm long. The head is 16mm and the nut is 18mm. That is the size of the replacement bolts I got via IPD.

[Jorge-789995]

Update,

I won the battle with the bolts. I tried a number of things all at the same time, so who knows what exactly worked. I kept soaking it with PB blaster which seems like a waste of time really. I heated the bolt to as hot as possible 4 or 5 times and allowed it to cool, hoping the thermal cycling would break some bonds. I also got a 1/4" piece of metal to back up the bolt while using the ball-joint press. Add to that, my breaker bar, some choice words of encouragement and the bolt finally pressed out to where I could tap it out with a hammer.

Upon install, I coated everything with a marine grade anti seize as Bill suggested. I did use loctite marine grade, but not the aluminum consumer grade that they make. The specs on it look impressive, so I hope to not have this issue again.

Thanks for all the help. It was helpful to hear the suggestions and to know that I was doing the right things. This one really stretched my abilities and tools. I am not a fully equipped mech., just a guy with a one car garage and a cold cracked cement floor to work on. Either way, I prevailed in the end and I wanted to come back and provide an update and my gratitude. This one really was a battle - I had 2 other bolts that broke and needed to be pressed out along with the bushing. Working alone on corroded suspension components without the right tools gets old really quickly.

Thanks again,

Keith