Thread: Some minor issues after Cooma

Somewhat predictably, spent most of yesterday and part of today getting the first old bush out. The second one came out with my puller, albeit not very easily. That was enough for me for the day.

Well, got the replacement spring ready to install. Now all we need is to pull the old one out. What could possibly go wrong?

First issue that reared its head, apart from nuts just being tight, was that the centre bolt is broken - and the head embedded in the recess in the axle. See the picture - shiny because I wire brushed it - it has not been moving.

Then my rattle gun declined to loosen the shackle bolt on the rear eye of the spring. This may have been because the bushes absorbed the impacts.

No problem. Undo the chassis bolt. Yes, this came out no problems - and revealed the bush needs to be replaces. I do not imagine this will be easy.

Transferred the spring, minus the bottom few leaves and the centrebolt, to the vice to undo the other shackle bolt. Rattle gun still would not look at it, until I loosened it a couple of turns using my 18" breaker bar with three feet of waterpipe as an extension.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

First issue that reared its head, apart from nuts just being tight, was that the centre bolt is broken - and the head embedded in the recess in the axle. See the picture - shiny because I wire brushed it - it has not been moving.

Is there enough protrusion there to weld a big nut onto it? I've found often the localised heat from the weld will help break a bolt loose where an oxy just spreads the injury.

There is no protrusion - it is flush. The bolt broke at the top of the shank/bottom of the head. I plan to drill a hole in it, as close to central as I can manage, and enlarge it to a good part of the diameter - I suspect the hole in the axle housing is deeper than the bolt head so there is a hollow behind it, allowing me to drill right through the bolt head.

My first effort will be to try an Esyout, or if there is enough cavity behind it, tap the hole as deep as possible and screw a HT bolt into it, if necessary with a short section having the thread ground off. This will jack it out if it refuses to turn, if it turns it should be easy to lever out. Centre bolts are not particularly hard, so I don't anticipate problems drilling it. (the nut end of the centrebolt has been peened over to make sure the nut stays on, suggesting the bolt is not very hard.)

Got the head of the centrebolt out by drilling a hole in it, screwing a large self tapper in and levering under the head of the self tapper with a tyre lever.

That left us with the bush in the chassis. It refused to move with my puller, and I did consider calling it serviceable. But ultimately decided "if you are doing a job do it properly". So I spent a large part of today getting it out. Drilled through the rubber in a couple of paces - problem is, i don't have a drill thin enough but also long enough to go right through the rubber. Then twisted it free from the rubber using a large esyout.

Next step scrape the rubber out, and hacksaw through the outer shell without damaging the sleeve in the chassis. That took hours.


Then clean the hole out - and find that the bush I have is a floating fit rather than a press fit. What to do?

Eventually ratted through the parts cupboard, and found a urethane bush set the right size. I decided I would use it - the chassis bush is less critical than the spring bushes.

From there it was just a matter of assembling things. A lot of nuts to do up, get antiseize all over your hands, fiddling about getting the centrebolt head into its socket, but eventually got everything back together, the wheel back on, and the chassis off the stands.

Now just need to loosen the shackle bolts, go for a short drive, and then tighten them and check tighten everything else.