So i took the car to my buddies today to install my lowering bolt kit, it was a very unsuccessful night. Got the car in the air, front wheels off. Located the front bolts and as it states, you have to tighten them to remove them. I am installing longer front bolts fwiw. Anyways, i don't care what they say, those bolts are NOT 10mm. I swear they are a 9.5mm, lol. The 10 mm stripped out the bolt, a 9mm was too small, a 3/8 was too small, a 7/16 was way too big. 10mm was the closest but definitely not the right fit. Anyways, the bolt was a BITCH to turn. We removed the sway bar to give more room and it was a bitch to turn. I then further looked and saw that it helped jacking up the leaf spring, does this make it a lot easier to turn the bolt? Anyways, now i'm stuck. The bolt is stripped and its almost out. I could have kept going with vice grips but i was curious what would happen when i got it down into the leaf spring and had no way to turn it as all. What are my options here? I havent touched the other side yet so any further assistance on how to remove this bolt easily would be greatly appreciated. Also, WTF do i do about this stripped bolt? I was thinking i could sawzall it from under the leaf spring and that would allow me to remove the bottom half of the bolt that is pressureized on the lower control arm and might be able to simply spin the top out. But if i cut it, will anything fall or no? Possible option or bad idea? We decided to halt the operation, put the car back together, get your opinion, and go back next weekend to attempt it. What should i do? Thank you!

 

If it's being that big a pain then just pull the spring. Mine were all chewed up on top so I had to remove the spring and then just cut off the top of the bolt with a cut-off wheel and used a small pipe wrench to turn out the bolt from the bottom. Then, I cleaned the threads and installed the new bolts. Some anti-seize can't hurt either.

Well, I didn't have to remove the spring but it was way easier than working under the car.

Basically, do this
- Jack it up on stands or hoist
- take off one wheel
- put the jack under the spring in the Y of the lower A-arm and lift until the car is ready to come up off the stands so the spring is off the a-arm
- mark the lower a-arm bolts so you'll get them back in the same location
- remove the lower a-arm bolts
- pull the lower a-arm out so it's above the spring. You may have to lower the spring some to get it past.
- remove the 4 bolts that hold the spring to the sub-frame
- drop the jack and take the spring out
- install in the reverse of the remove.

Peter

 

hmmm, honestly removing the leaf spring with the bolt attached NEVER crossed our minds. I will have to look into that for sure! Keep the input coming, all advice is greatly appreciated. Is cutting the bolt a possible option?

 

You could cut the bolt and then turn out the remainder from the top. But, you still have to insert the new bolt from the bottom with the lower a-arm in the way. And, it leaves you trying to work a sawzall under the car between the spring and the a-arm.

Removing the spring really is pretty easy. You can likely get the spring out in about the same amount of time you spent removing the sway bar.

There are how-to's which detail removing the calipers and shocks and sway bar end links and upper control arms on both sides to pull the spring but that's way too much work. I applaud the work put into detailing the how-to but it's not a good method.

Peter

 

ok cool, well with air tools i had the sway off in about 5 minutes if that. I will follow your instructions i think on removing the leaf spring, that should make this much easier. If i do that, then remove the bolt from the leaf spring out of the car, can i reinstall the new bolt and tighten it all the way down in the leaf before re-installing? Thanks!

 

I just did this operation last week and my front bolts were hard to turn at first but I let them soak in 10w-40 for 20 minutes and then I jacked up the hub slightly to take the presure off the spring and it turned fine. If you are using a 12 point 10mm wrench you will strip it. You really need to use a 6 point (6 sided) 10 mm to prevent striping. Try this on the other side and I bet it will work fine.

 

hmm thanks, i will def let it soak this time around. A 6 sided wrench was also used and stripped it, ugh. Any info on any other ways to get this stripped bolt out? I thought this job was going to be a piece of cake, i was proven wrong, lol

 

Bump!

 

I looked into this issue when my fronts were a little stuborn. Read these treads - maybe it will help you out.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...r+lower+cannot

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...ng+car+problem

I would try vise grips, maybe a LITTLE heat (be extremely carful with heat - need to remove shock and don’t overheat spring, wd-40 can catch on fire, etc).

 

thanks! Seems like a lot of people also have issues stripping the bolts out so i'm not alone, haha. I think i will spray a ton of wd-40 on it overnight and try to get the weight completely off it as best i can and re-try. If that fails i will either remove the spring, drop the control arm, or cut the bolt. What do you think would be my best option if i cant get it out? Thanks!

 

You have to jack up the spring to take the tension off. I lowered my car in my garage with a small 10mm wrench and it was tight, but came off...I tried it with the spring not jacked up and there was no way it was going to ove with the little wrench I used.....Good luck.

 

WD40 is probably not going to work as well as a rust cutting product like PB BLASTER.
Fill the little trough that surrounds the OD of the two adjustment bolts on the top side of the spring. Allow it to wick down the threads over time. It may take a couple of applications.
When you see it below the spring on the threads, you'll know it's completely penetrated the threads of the adjustment bolt and the metal insert in the spring. If you prematurely force it, you'll cause the metal insert to dislodge/fail and you'll have to buy another spring.
Also, use more PB BLASTER on the bottom of the rubber bushing. It has probably vulcanized to the control arm. Use a metal putty knife to release the rubber bushing from the control arm as you lubricate it.
I didn't even need to use a wrench to loosen the adjustment bolts following this procedure. They could be turned by hand.

 

Ok sounds good. I'll pick up some PB Blaster today and soak it on the top of the bolt and the bottom bushing. Then i'll jack the spring up and hopefully it comes out easy! If not i'll have to resort to dropping arm, spring, or cutting bolt. Thanks!

 

PB Blaster is great for removing stuck bolts...but be careful not to use to much or the nuts and bolts will turn together causing more headaches. I just switched my front bolts for C6 bolts and after I droped the control arm, the factory bolts just spun out by hand. Took all of 2 seconds to fully spin in the new bolts. Took a few extra steps to drop the arm but well worth it in the end.

 

Could you please post up how you dropped the arms? Step by step if possible? Thanks!

 

Also guys,
I havent even looked at the rear yet. I will be lowering it as far as i can on the stock bolts first and will see if i like that look. If i want to go more, i am going to toss in the longer bolts i also purchased. Is there any tricks that should be done in the rear so i don't frig that up too? haha. Any jacking up of any parts to take weight off or any tips/tricks? Thanks!

 

I didnt have any problems with the rear bolts at all. Just follow the writeups you find on the forum and you should be fine. No tricks should be needed.

 

Thanks!

FWIW i find it funny how the instructions that came with my front bolts said..... jack up the front of the car, locate the 10mm bolts, remove them, insert new bolts, HAHA

 

i just want to throw this out there. the front leaf spring IS NOT THREADED. it is what appears to be fiberglass or some other spring material. there is a hole drilled in the spring, and a threaded collar is inserted from the bottom. what happens sometimes, is the lowering bolt sizes itself to the collar, and the collar then just free-spins inside the drilled hole of the spring. this happened to me. i had to remove the sway bar endlink, disconnect lower ball joint, stretch the control arm down with one hand, and pull out the bolt/collar out with the other hand from the bottom. put it in a vise, and turn thre bolt free.

this is just a heads up if anyone had this problem. i was able to turn my bolts, but they would not unthread, just spin and i couldnt figure out why.

but since we now know the collars come out, why don't you drop the control arms (takes ten minutes) pull the bolts out from the bottom and work from there. i thought you had to do this if you were replacing the bolts anyway. just my .02 -Jeremy

 

that is the plan. Can someone give me some steps to follow to remove the lower control arm? Car is back on the ground and driving so i cannot look at it myself and would like to no what the job will entail Thanks in advance!