Upper Suspension Bolt removal

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Upper Suspension Bolt removal

Postby jamezz666 » Sat Aug 29, 2020 1:50 am

Hello Everyone

after my GT failed the MOT on a few things, i had recently fell into a problem that lead me to a point of giving up, as i had lost 1 solid week of work, from trying to remove the upper suspension bolt. It's the bolt that holds the horse shoe shaped part (forgot it's name) with two bushes both ends that the bolt goes through and holds the upper ball joint.

Now.. this thread is being created to help anyone who may end up having the same problem i had or any other bolt that is severely seized.

so I had a breaker bar and lots and lots of plus gas, which ended with the bolt head breaking off. This bolt was that seized, i had to cut the horse shoe off with a cutting disc, so only the bolt remained. i had tried hours of soaking in plus gas (penetrating fluid) i tried hammering it out, i soaked it in phosphoric acid and it just didn't work. So i come up with an idea :idea: I got 2 old radiator hose pipes with clips and pushed them over the ends of the bolts and over the outer tube. I come across a product called DEOX C Rust dissolver and this stuff i was on the fence with as most people normally are with so called "rust dissolvers" and i had a couple bolts/nuts that had been in my works ground for probably 30+ years and they was so rusted, it was hard to make a head and tail if it was a nut on the end of a bolt, so i left the bolts/nuts in this powder/water solution for 42 hours and to my shock... the things was to bare metal with no rust at all! heavily pitted but no rust and not even in the threads! picture below of the nut.

so i poured this powder/water mix into the water hose pipes i had put over the bolt/outer tube and left them for 4 days, which it seemed to of gotten in part way and dissolved some rust, but this upper bolt was defeating me and the powder mix just wasn't great enough (i still highly recommend the product DEOX C) and i had surrounding workers and others telling me to drop the subframe and just get the oxygen and acetylene on to it... well... i'm stubborn and i thought this bolt isn't getting off that easily... so i don't have any oxygen and acetylene no more and the price of it is just ridiculous.. then out of the blue a memory popped into my head of a tool i seen 8 years ago, which can heat metal up glowing red just like oxygen and acetylene, but it's flameless/much safer but at the time was a little over a £1000, so i told myself forget about it. Come the other day when i checked.. you could get one for £190 postage included and that tool is called a Mini Ductor and heats metal up using EMF Electric Magnetic Frequency and you know what... with just one day of using that while the subframe was still in place, the bolt slowly started to move, by heating the bolt up hammering it and turning it with pipe grips. There's no worry of it igniting anything as there is no flames and it doesn't run out of gas like oxygen and acetylene and this tool has to be the best tool i've ever purchased. The coils that do the heating, can be adjusted to how ever you want! i bent an old spanner with it earlier and even an old exhaust!

After the bolt was removed, i fitted the old hose pipes back over the outer tubes and filled them with a DEOX C water mix to completely remove the rust from inside it.

All i have to do is find a bolt and grease the inside of that tube up.

7 solid days of trying breaker bar/impact gun/hammer/acid vs 1 day using a mini ductor/hammer/pipe grips

so if you have seized bolts/screws anything like that and you want a tool that works out cheaper than oxygen and acetylene and does just a good of a job of turning metal glowing red, then get yourself on ebay and buy a mini ductor!
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1000W-Mini-D ... SwmHBd9xtl

If you want a product to completely remove rust, buy yourself a tub of DEOX C Rust dissolver
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bilt-Hamber- ... SwUNRcjPjE

Picture of the nut is of it being left in DEOX C for 42 hours and that was heavily rusted to the point it was hard to make out it was a nut and now it's stripped clean of any rust.

Now it's time for bed! :lol:

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Re: Upper Suspension Bolt removal

Postby jpsmit » Sat Aug 29, 2020 3:58 am

well done! congratulations. and thanks for the recommendations.

do the coils of the ductor actually touch the bolt or just encircle it?

very cool solution!
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Re: Upper Suspension Bolt removal

Postby droopsnoot » Sat Aug 29, 2020 12:11 pm

Interesting link to the tool. I'm a bit reluctant to have flammable stuff in my shed so this might be a handy thing to get for heating stuff up when I need it.

I have tried Deox-C and got good results, however you can save yourself some money as I believe it's just Citric Acid powder, which is available from all sorts of places at much lower cost. Nice idea on the pipes to create a bath for it.

Remember that when the suspension goes back together to grease that bolt up. It doesn't turn in normal operation, which is one of the reasons it gets to be so rusted in place. I periodically loosen the nut on mine and turn the bolt a little, just to make sure it's still free.

The thing you cut off is the upper wishbone. I hadn't realised you'd cut it into pieces - with better access you can just cut through the protruding section of wishbone bush - there's about 10mm between the outside of the tube on the subframe and the start of the actual wishbone.
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Re: Upper Suspension Bolt removal

Postby jamezz666 » Sat Aug 29, 2020 2:01 pm

jpsmit wrote:well done! congratulations. and thanks for the recommendations.

do the coils of the ductor actually touch the bolt or just encircle it?

very cool solution!


Thank you and it's advised not too touch the coils to metal and i found out why.. so the white rubbery like casing that covers the coils, goes brittle over use and it speeds up quicker if you have the coil touching the red metal. Now in the booklet it states that if the bare metal coils touch the metal being heated, it will short out. Well after my arms was loosing energy, i had touched the bare metal of the coils onto the bolt and nothing happened, so i think it's just to stop people doing it, so the rubber like coating lasts longer.
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Re: Upper Suspension Bolt removal

Postby jamezz666 » Sat Aug 29, 2020 2:08 pm

droopsnoot wrote:Interesting link to the tool. I'm a bit reluctant to have flammable stuff in my shed so this might be a handy thing to get for heating stuff up when I need it.

I have tried Deox-C and got good results, however you can save yourself some money as I believe it's just Citric Acid powder, which is available from all sorts of places at much lower cost. Nice idea on the pipes to create a bath for it.

Remember that when the suspension goes back together to grease that bolt up. It doesn't turn in normal operation, which is one of the reasons it gets to be so rusted in place. I periodically loosen the nut on mine and turn the bolt a little, just to make sure it's still free.

The thing you cut off is the upper wishbone. I hadn't realised you'd cut it into pieces - with better access you can just cut through the protruding section of wishbone bush - there's about 10mm between the outside of the tube on the subframe and the start of the actual wishbone.


Thanks and i would highly advise buying one, as there's no worry of gas leaking ect as you would with oxygen and acetylene.

I did before buying the DEOX C investigate what it was made from, as i seen many people saying it was citric acid just a weakened version and i found 1 other chap saying that it's not citric acid and that it contains other things.
I did try citric acid powder and it just didn't do no where near the same sort of rust removal, but citric acid did remove some.

Ye i did think already to grease it up before putting it back together, just i'm struggling to find a supplier of bolts that long and width.

Ahh that's the one! upper wish bone! i had to cut it in half as it was near locked in one position due to one of the bushes. Good idea about loosening it every now and then! I'll keep that in mind
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Re: Upper Suspension Bolt removal

Postby jpsmit » Sat Aug 29, 2020 2:12 pm

James if you are stumped I might <might> have some of those bolts. Likely from an HB subframe but I imagine the bolts would be the same.
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Re: Upper Suspension Bolt removal

Postby jamezz666 » Sat Aug 29, 2020 2:33 pm

jpsmit wrote:James if you are stumped I might <might> have some of those bolts. Likely from an HB subframe but I imagine the bolts would be the same.


Ok i'll keep you in mind :D i'll try find a supplier of new bolts and i'll get back to you if need be
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Re: Upper Suspension Bolt removal

Postby droopsnoot » Sat Aug 29, 2020 6:25 pm

I bought some new bolts from Namrick when I was putting the Firenza back together. They don't have the pointed end that Vauxhall suspension bolts have, you have to add that (or remove it) yourself. They were custom bolts and quite expensive, but a possibility if all else fails. I'd have thought all HB and HC top bolts will be the same.
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Re: Upper Suspension Bolt removal

Postby 1972nail » Sat Aug 29, 2020 6:44 pm

There is a pair currently on eBay, quite expensive but at least you will get them. I think Magard Sport may have new ones. You could also try Martin Robey, Jensen Healey specialist, they have lots of useful bits you can't get elsewhere.
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Re: Upper Suspension Bolt removal

Postby 1972nail » Sat Aug 29, 2020 6:49 pm

Just checked, Martin Robey lists them at £10.95 each plus VAT - I assume. They also list the nut and washers at a reasonable price.

https://www.martinrobey.com/jensen-heal ... rossmember

https://www.martinrobey.com/jensen-heal ... mber/15270
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