Posted By : William Davies, 29-Oct-2004,
10:50am
Best approach to the trunnion bolt is to drill out the centre of the bolt head (there is enough clearance inside the tierod bracket, I've done it many
times) so that it seperates from the bolt shaft. Now you can spread the vertical link apart gently to get a hacksaw blade down each side and cut out
the remains of the bolt.
Pushing out the UJ caps with sockets is often ineffective, I use a large mallet (soft faced) to hit the flange down wards as the cap faces up, the
shaft being held in the other hand and moved upwards to meet the mallet. Once the flange is removed, support the redundant arms of the UJ across the
jaws of the vice (not tightened) and hit down on the yoke until the cap has pushed far enough out to be esaily gripped by the vice.
I covered this in some detail last year in the Courier, I can email you a copy if you don't have - it a picture tells 100 words and all that......
Cheers,
Bill.
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Posted By : Christopher How, 29-Oct-2004,
11:12am
i've just had a wheel bearing replaced on my 1500, only i did the sensible thing realising it was too hard for me to do on my own and gave it to my
local garage.
They told me this bolt would be a problem and the best way to deal with it was to saw it off with a thin hacksaw blade. I presume you can then lift
the trunnion housing over the top?!?
Chris
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Posted By : William Davies,
29-Oct-2004, 12:55pm
Passing a hacksaw blade down each side of the trunnion is all well and good, but most of the time you will have to cut through the hardened
steel tube, not a pleasant job at all. Removing the nut allows that side of the link to be spread away from the trunnion, allowing the hacksaw
to reach the bolt without going through the tube. Drilling off the head of the bolt has the same result on the other side,
Cheers,
Bill.
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Posted By : William Davies,
29-Oct-2004, 12:55pm
Passing a hacksaw blade down each side of the trunnion is all well and good, but most of the time you will have to cut through the hardened
steel tube, not a pleasant job at all. Removing the nut allows that side of the link to be spread away from the trunnion, allowing the hacksaw
to reach the bolt without going through the tube. Drilling off the head of the bolt has the same result on the other side,
Cheers,
Bill.
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Posted By : Philip Rosenberg,
29-Oct-2004, 01:57pm
I'm in no place to advise about the trunnion but re the UJ cups I got to the same point as you then managed to get them out with a set of
curved mole grips
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Posted By : Stephen Airey,
30-Oct-2004, 06:21am
OK, Thanks for all the advice - I will go and buy a better hacksaw blade and try again.
For the UJ I thought of grinding part of the cap to give better grip with the mole grips - or is this a really stupid idea?
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Posted By : Stephen Airey,
31-Oct-2004, 06:39am
Success - the trunnion bolt is out (in three pieces) using the hacksaw method and without damaging anything else. Great.
UJ is still stuck though - nothing seems to grip the cap enough to be able to turn it.
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Posted By : Keith
Jones, 31-Oct-2004, 09:49am
stephen
try filing two flats on opposite sides of the cap. you can then get extra grip with mole grips etc.
keith
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Posted By : Stephen
Airey, 02-Nov-2004, 06:53am
YES!!!
At last it's out. I had to grind flats on the sides of the cups and wrecked one set of mole grips but now the damn thing is
out - just have to put it all back together now!
Posted By : Chris Taylor, 29-Oct-2004,
06:15pm
Dealing with that damned bolt in the unmentionable bush has to be one of the worst jobs. I've had to do it several times, and on each occasion the only
option was to saw through the thing. You need a GOOD hacksaw blade (High speed steel, bi-metal etc) as the bolt is tough, and a proper hacksaw where
you can position the blade within the frame at 90 degrees to "normal". You need to be careful about the alignment of the blade as there is a risk of
damaging the side of the vertical link (although there is a reinforcement there) or the side of the bearing housing. There IS space for the blade
though which is taken up by the steel washers enclosing the sealing ring, and the end of the plastic bush. (You may need to look in a workshop manual
to see what the seal arrangement is meant to look like as it has probably disappeared with rust etc by now which is part of where the seizure problem
arises).
You should aim to cut down through the plastic bush which is easy enough, and then plenty of patience and energy to cut through the bush and bolt.
Given a high quality blade it should not take more than 5 or 10 minutes a side.
There IS an alternative if you have a spare vertical link, or want to buy new ones: saw through the bar which joins the two vertical arms (and then
forms the lower shock absorber mounting) and throw away! The front half will then pull off the end of the bolt (radius arm end) and then you can either
get proper access to bash the bolt and bush out of the bearing housing, or grind off the head off the bolt and pull the rear half off. You will still
need to bash the bolt and bush out, but with proper access you can now apply decent heat to the plastic bushes (they will eventually melt, but watch
out for the wheel bearing grease and brake components!) and get penetrating oil right to the necessary spot. (And applying brute force is much
easier!). This is a waste of what is probably a perfectly useable vertical link.
As for the UJ cups, I have tried three methods, 1 & 2 of which have certainly worked!
1. Use brute force to grip the cup with a mole wrench, preferrably one with curved jaws.
2. Grip the bearing cup with a nut splitter. This should not work as the bearing cup is hardened, but although it did dent the "blade" of the nut
splitter, it certainly gripped long enough and hard enough to get the 8 cups out for two UJs.
3. Theoretically it should be possible to use a fine nail punch to hammer down the side of the spider on the end face of the cup, but there is a real
risk of getting the cup skewed, so doing this gradually applying to opposite sides of the cup alternately is essential.
Once you have got one cup out, you can pass a long thin punch through the grease holes in the spider (if it has the drillings for grease injection) to
bear on the opposite cap. Alternatively, if you can lift the spider far enough out of the remaining cup, you can get something under the spider tip so
that when you press the spider down again it can force the cup a bit further out. Just dislodging a few rollers from their proper position to the
bottom of the cup can be enough.
(Of course sods law says that you can only get rollers into this position when ASSEMBLING a new UJ, rather than when you want it to happen when
dismantling!)
Applying a LITTLE judicious heat to the outside of the yoke (the bit the bearing cap is stuck in) can help to reduce the tightness of the press fit,
but don't overdo it. GOOD LUCK!
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Posted By : Andrew Stanton, 01-Apr-2006,
09:40pm
I gave up!
Instead of fretting trying to move the trunnion bolt, I dissasembled the shock absorber, and then removing the bolt from the mainspring allowing me
to remove the half shaft with the verticle arms still attached.
As for shifting the UJ bearings I reasoned that as I going to dispose of the bearing cubs, I could drill a neat little hole, tap it, and the but a
screw into it. Then with the judicious use of the law of leavers in the form of a claw hammer I shifted the little sod. Once you've done one side
you find that with centre punches and hammers of the correct size the rest more or less falls out.
I use the old brummy adage. "Don't use force. Get a bigga 'ammer!"