I'm in the middle of replacing the bushings/struts/springs on my front end. The driver's side is off, the A-arm is being POR-15'ed right now, but the passenger side A-arm is giving me problems (like the other did). The rear bolt won't come out. It seems to be rust welded to the sleeve inside the bushing. I got the nut off but the bolt will go NOWHERE except rotate.

My dad (who's a Mechanical Engineer) has looked at it, thought about it, and suggests that I admit failure and leave the A-arm on. Replace the ball joint and put it back together again with the stock bushings remaining and unpainted. Now, this is the ultimate in defeat for me! Please suggest a way to get this bolt out!

I've been soaking it in PB Blaster since Friday now, I've got a C-clamp on it applying pressure. There really isn't any room to get a hacksaw on any part of it, our Sawzall is broken, I have no impact wrench (although I'm looking into borrowing one from a friend). This is what I've got, any ideas? TIA.

 

I assume you tried smacking the SOB with a hammer, on the threaded end, to get it to move out? Protect the threads by loosely threading the nut onto the end of the bolt; then, hammer the nut.

If nothing moves, unfortunately, you'll have to cut the head and "tail" off of the bolt. Then you'll have to grind "inwards" to remove enough metal so the a-arm just falls down. An air-powered cut off wheel is what you need... you might have to bring it to a shop if you don't have air tools.

Edit: Oh, how are you applying pressure with the c-clamp? Did you put a socket between the c-clamp and the bolt head, so the c-clamp has room to push the bolt into the socket? This is why I plan to buy all new bolts for the front a-arms when I rebuild my suspension; and I'm going to slather the crap outta them with anti-sieze compound. An impact wrench is just going to spin the bolt, it won't help. Good luck, let us know how it goes. I'm sure at least 10 of us will need this help in the future!

 

Well, I admitted defeat and left it as is. I've already rebuilt that side of the suspension. I simply don't have the tools necessary to make this worth while. Eventually I'll just get myself a spare A-arm, clean it up, install the new bushings and give it to a shop and say "Here, swap them." I would have tried getting a sawzall inbetween the crossmember flange and bushing to cut the bolt off on the inside of the frame; do it on both sides and I wouldn't have to do any more work, the A-arm will simply drop out. But unfortunately I burned out the Sawzall doing the SAME thing on my panhard rod so I don't know how much luck I'd have. Oh well.