strut housing questions

[bimmerboy]

in my suspension rebuild, ive disassembled my strut housings as much as i can, including taking off the pitman arm. with this i found a very rusty pitman arm in the cavity where the ball joint bolts too and where it is covered by the strut housing. like the ball joint nut is now indistingusible and it looks like the arm it self lost quite a bit of thickness. i did the same to my spare struts and found the same thing. is this common and nothing to worry about or should i find good ones? also in both of my struts one of the studs joining the arm and strut rusted or broke somehow(obvisouly happened a long time ago as its all rusted) its the same stud on both, and im wondering if this should be taken care and how as i dont see it coming out easily. my spares dont have this problem but they are in worse shape and it seems like the insert is seized in, so how do i get a strut out of its housing??

Thanks and sorry its kinda long.

[jerry]

alot of issues here.

first off it sounds like the castleated nut holding the ball joint in place has become a rusty amophous mess. use a Mapp Gas plumbers torch, your favorite penetrating oil, a cold chisel or punch and ball pein hammer to coax the nut off.

if you're lucky you'll see enough of the residual cotterpin to try to punch it through the hole, before trying to unscrew what's left of the nut. chances are it's too small and rusty for a socket to fit on. use your punch and hammer and start tapping the edges to try to unscrew it.

if you have a die-grinder that can get a cutter/grinder in there, have at it. i think Dremels are toys so i avoid those. patience, oil, heat are your friends.

on to the three nuts holding the arm onto the struts (i'm assuming these are the ones with safety wire):

i had this on a tii strut i acquired. i had to use a drill press to drill through the remaining bolt and after alot of oil, heat and coaxing was able to free it up to unscrew it. make a flatspot on it a carefully drill through the center. i was slightly off-center but it worked out okay.

as for a stuck strut insert: haven't come across that yet so i can't relay my personal experience as i have with the other two issues.

[bimmerboy]

so i should go ahead and try to remove the broken stud... hmm that should be fun.

Thanks for your experiences

[PeteinMissionViejo]

I'm just finishing up my front end and also found the castelated nut and cotter holding the ball joint a rusted mess. I found the easier way of dealing with this was to cut the ball joint at the skinniest part of the neck, grind it down flush and drill out to the rusted on nut. No hope of separting the nut and cotter and reaching in to grind the nut wasn't working. I used progressively larger drills. Good luck. That proved the hardest part of the suspension disassembly. For the nuts/studs with the safety wire - I was able to get at them a lot easier after the brake backing plate was out of the way. The nuts did't come off and the remains of the safety wire was still sticking out but the whole thing came off like a stud. I'm now putting in bushings and have one control arm bushing that is fighting me - tried the wire wrap, threaded bolt with washers, soap, boiling. I'm going out and buying a 10 ton press tomorrow from Harbor Freight.

Pete

[bimmerboy]

must have broken long time ago as it was hardly recognizable.

anyone else encounter stuck struts? maybe i just missed something that wasnt on the one that came out? i undid the obvious cap "nut" is there anything else?

[jgerry2002]

The ball joint studs breaking and rusting inside the strut is a typical rustbelt issue.

Everything came apart on my tii struts, so I can't really offer any advice other than perhaps drilling it out or bringing it to a machine shop to see what they can do with it.

[winstontj]

must have broken long time ago as it was hardly recognizable.

anyone else encounter stuck struts? maybe i just missed something that wasnt on the one that came out? i undid the obvious cap "nut" is there anything else?

Sounds crazy but shove it in further. What happens is that the strut somehow moves up and down (either it's too short or the top screw comes loose a little) so it moves up and down, moisture gets in there and then the rust seizes it up if it sits for a while. Two things - first add ATF or some other light oil. Second press it all the way down to the bottom of the strut tube. That will break it free, then next work it up and down little by little till it comes out.

If that doesn't work put the tube in a vice down by the spindle, put BIG vice grips on the very end of the shock where the nut is and hit it with a BFH.

Once you give the light oil time to soak in use heat at the base (CAREFULLY) and it will help to free it up. Just don't explode the shock tube.