steering and suspension Help With Broken Bolt

[mdh]

I was trying to replace the rear shock on my '75 and I broke the bolt (pin) that holds the shock to the trailing  arm. #5 in the photo. My question is how do I remove/replace this pin? Can it be done without removing the brakes? I am waiting on parts but I dont see how to get the old one out and new one in. there is about 1/2 an inch clearance between the head of the pin and the backing plate of the brakes.

Thanks,

 

Matthew

[AceAndrew]

It is a knurled press-fit stud, meaning to get it out you'll need to bang it out with a hammer (with a nut in place).  To fully remove and replace you'll need to remove the backing plate from the drum. 

 

[mdh]

So no way to do it ( removing the backing plate) without removing the axle nut? That is a bit more than I think I am comfortable with.

Would bolting the strut on with a locking nut on the backing plate side be a bad idea?

[Honolulu]

The big nut needn't scare you.  Back in my VW days, I used a pipe wrench and a bit of a pipe cheater.  I'm large enough that jumping on the cheater was quite sufficient to move the nut.

 

Take off the big nut, backing plate etc and you can clean up everything and make it real neat looking before you put it all back where no one will ever see it again, and do a proper job rather than a hack.

[bill.in.mt]

Could you drive it part way out and then cut off the head?

[BillWilliams]

But then he would be in a miisma to get the new back in. Take it all off, do it right

[bill.in.mt]

good point.

[Mike Self]

One more suggestion--

knock the stud loose, then saw the head off.  Continue driving the stud out until it contacts the brake backing plate.  If the contact is at a non-critical point on the backing plate, remove the brake shoe,  drill a hole in the backing plate large enough to allow the stud to continue on through and drive it out.  Enlarge the hole enough to allow the new stud head to pass through, and install.  Cover the hole you've created with a rubber plug of the proper diameter and you're done.

 

cheers

mike

[mdh]

I will give this a go after the pins come in from Germany....

 

Second thought...if you remove the brake wheel cylinder (the small hydraulic cylinder) as well as the brake shoe assemblies, unbolt the backing plate and rotate it so you can drive out the remnant of the stud thru the hole formerly occupied by the brake wheel cylinder, and reinstall thru the same hole, I think you may have success this way.  I have not had to do it that way, but I think it may be possible. 

 

if the above wont work I will drill a hole a la Mike...

[jgerock]

The left trailing arm on my tii uses a bolt/nut instead of the original stud to secure the shock. That's the way I got it.

 

 

[KFunk]

I'm not sure what I did, it was like 8 years ago.... but I did the same thing, and just drilled it out and put a big bolt (very high grade, maybe an allen head bolt) and nut in its place somehow, without ever removing axle nut or backing plate. 

Even at the time, I knew it was not the proper way to do things.  But, it's caused no problems in 8 years of heavy abuse through autocross, cross-country driving, etc....  Never had a reason to mess with it again.

[mdh]

The left trailing arm on my tii uses a bolt/nut instead of the original stud to secure the shock. That's the way I got it.

 

Perfect! This will the first thing I will try. Any reason this would not hold up as well as the original pin?

[KFunk]

Use the highest grade bolt you can get... 

[OriginalOwner]

 my first idea was what Mike said:  drill a hole through the backing plate.

 

 and the nut and bolt idea from jgerock and kfunk seems reasonable and very workable.

 

Cheers,

 

Carl

[Tommy]

Perfect! This will the first thing I will try. Any reason this would not hold up as well as the original pin?

That's what I would do. I can imagine having two or three broken bolts more after taking it all apart and possible other problems with stuck wheel hub etc. There's no reason why the bolt and nut solution wouldn't work. And after all if the bolt would break it's not a catastrophic failure - you won't loose a wheel or anything like that. 10.9 grade bolt is good enough.

 

Unless you want to take this as an opportunity to refresh everything around there.

 

  Tommy