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Hey everyone. I have a big problem with by dad’s 2005 accord. Was doing axle replacements and I mushroomed the bolt that goes through the wishbone and lower control arm bushing. Didnt really care cause I bought spares but I cannot get it out. I tried banging on it and air hammering it after it sat with penetrating oil for a while. The nut came off no problem but the bolt just won’t come out. What are my options? Do I just have to cut it out and replace the bushing or is their something else I can try?
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Can you file the mushroomed part to get it out?
Cut the bolt and get another. Can you post a picture?Yep, just sigh and go to Harbor Freight and buy their $29.95 4-inch electric cutoff saw. Use it to cut through the bolts or bushings. Once you’ve done that you can either buy a new control arm or if the busing isn’t too damaged you can try hammering out the bolt shaft. Once I was able to hammer out the bolt, the other three times it was way too rusted and I just bought new control arms.
Yea I’m breaking out the whizzer tomorrow morning. I got the new bolt. My buddy is going to press a new bushing in for me because I don’t have a press. I tried everything to get it out. Just was wondering if that was the best way to go. Thanks for the reply.
I’ll post a pic tomorrow morning but I will most likely just cut it out with the whizzer. It’s seized to the bushing. The bushing needs to be replaced anyway I think because it spins with the bolt so it must be shot. Hopefully the control arm comes off without an issue otherwise my dad’s car is staying on jack stands till I can get one.
Just wanted to see if I had another option that wouldn’t require me cutting through the bushing to get it out but I can’t let it sit any longer. Thanks for the reply, it’s much appreciated, especially so quick.
That’s just the way these things are. Folks that live in places where they don’t use salt on the roads have no trouble removing these bolts. Just look on YouTube and you’ll see videos of folks with a twang in their voices removing these bolts with a small wrench. Those of us in the snow belt have your kind of experience, almost every time. If we were smart, we would have taken these bolts out every 5 years and greased them up with some anti-sieze.
Seems about the normal. I think for every one of those bolts I have had come out nicely, I have had probably 5 or 6 that I cut with the whizzer, and replaced the bushing.
Sweet because I was like, “Why ME?!”. Yea I just cut that sob. It was seized so bad I couldn’t even tell where the bushing ended and the bolt started, it become joined completely almost. Thanks for the reply.
I like that “If at first you don’t succeed…”. I tried that a lot yesterday, very appropriate for what I’ve been going through. Just didn’t work out this time.
Yeah, in a perfect world they would put anti-seize on every exposed bolt on all the cars shipped to the snow belt. Or we would have enough foresight to do it ourselves before everything rusts up solidly. Maybe on my next car…..
Well I tried to make my world as perfect as I could get it. I coated those new bolts with anti seize. As well as the control arm bolts which also did not want to come out without a fight. Funny thing is, my buddy is a mechanic and he pressed the bushing in for me but he also had an Accord that needed struts. He sent me a video of himself just spinning the bolt right out of the control arm no problem. And it was an older car than the one I worked on. I guess it’s a crap shoot.
I tried a LOT of that the first time I changed a strut in an Accord. Keep in mind that I was working a bit here and there between my real job, so I had like an hour or so at a time to mess with it. I screwed with it for the better part of a week before I finally went to Wal Mart, bought a 4.5″ grinder, and had at it. Then it took me for ever to figure out how to get the remains of the bushing out.
That first Accord strut took me a solid week to change. I did the other side in about an hour and a half, already knew what to do, and how to go about it.
I know Eric has a video on how to do axle replacements on Accord’s but if someone attempts this job and that bolt is seized and they don’t have air tools they’re in big trouble. More so if they attempt to hammer out that bolt and it gets damaged and needs to be replaced. And the bushing can be a pain in the butt too from what my buddy told me. It doesn’t always want to come out. Well, this job was a lot of fun. Thanks again to everyone who replied back.
It might depend some on the year, but in the Accords I have worked on, it is not necessary to remove that bolt to get the axle out.
Air tools aren’t really a necessity either. An electric 4.5″ angle grinder (probably under $25 at Harbor Freight) will cut the ends of that bolt of nicely. Once the bolt is out, and you get the strut fork out of the way, you can drill through the rubber part of the bushing, or heat it up good with a torch, and push the rubber out, leaving just the metal sleeve behind.
At that point, get a hack saw with a good blade, thread the blade through the center of the sleeve, put the saw together, and carefully saw nearly all the way through the sleeve, being VERY certain NOT to cut into the control arm. Remove the saw, and do a bit of work with a big hammer, and a flat chisel to bend up the edge of the sleeve next to the groove you cut in it. Eventually the sleeve will split, and then come out. Remove the arm from the car, find a socket that is the same diameter as the new bushing sleeve, and carefully use the socket and your trusty BFH to drive the new bushing in. Reinstall the arm, us a new bolt, and some never cease, and reinstall your strut fork. Job done!
You forgot a few gotchas:
(1) Try to back out the bolt first from the captive nut. If you don’t, and go straight to sawing it out, you’re left with the bigger problem of how to get the bolt out of the nut. Its best to try manhandling the bolt out of the nut first with a breaker bar, if possible. Otherwise you will have the less than fun job of drilling out the remains of the bolt. If it’s really stuck, which they often are, 5 minutes with a propane torch pointed at the captive nut may help loosen things up. The rubber bushing will smoke and smell, but that’s okay.
(2) All that work to replace the bushing is a lot of work. In these parts, a whole control arm is only like $20 more than the cost of the bushings. I always just grumble a little bit and replace the whole control arm. That way you get all fresh new bushings.
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