artistic_gore

I swear it's not my fault! I got billited out here and I would give anything to get back to the west coast. We'll see how the cards play out when I am up for transfer again. I'd honestly like to get back to washington but I'll settle for oregon, nor-cal, or alaska again.

I think I am about ready to try drilling it out from the backside and using a longer bolt with a nylock and lockwasher (with antisieze of course)

No pipe and it was actually an 18" breaker. Unfortunately I got in deeper and have now stripped the locking bolt on the ball joint:confused: I'm going to search the forum for work arounds. I guess in the worst case I may have to disconnect the strut to see if that gives me enough room to get the shaft out. I'm going to pick up some stripped bolt socket things first but if all else fails...

Picked up a 24" 3/4" breaker bar and socket assortment this morning at harborfreight, came home and had the nut off in about 3min. Thanks for the advice guys. I look forward to helping some other folks down the road.

I've got jackstands. I just wasn't thinking of setting my breaking bar on one. And the tools i've broken so far have been a stanley, a snap-on, some asian job (my old torque wrench), and a $15 breaking bar from advance auto parts. Also my local sears went out of business but I heard that K-mart is stocking craftsman now or at least they are supposed to start so I may stop by there at some point.

Thank you for the advice. I was concidering that yesterday (but no jackstand) but with the 1/2" drive I figured it would just break (...) But harborfreight has a 3/4" metric set with 19mm through like 40mm for $50 on sale for $37 if the retail store will recognize the online price I think I will be in business. If I find a way to break a 3/4" drive I'll let ya'll know how. Time to sleep. I have the mid-watch tonight and need to get some rest so I don't crash my subie on the way home tomorrow.

Thank you. I'm sure I'll post one of those "hot damn, now its done, time to move on to the 41 other things on my list" posts sometime tomorrow. I just hope I don't jack the old CV to bad trying to get this nut off. I was lying before I want my $60 back. I'm cheap and that money can go towards other necessities on the car.

By standard I mean SAE if someone told me english I would think they meant english standard like the tools used on old MGs. But yes I figured 1 1/4" to be the closest but couldn't find one here in a 3/4" socket size so I came up with a gameplan. Tomorrow I will go to harborfreight and get some grinding and cutting tools and a cold chisel. Grind the neck off the nut to see if that does anything. Maybe break another breaker bar. And if worse comes to worse I will cut/chisel the nut off.

I'm gonna go try something...what's the standard equivelant of 32mm?

Nix that, I just read another thread dealing with this issue and it seems that a die grinder and cold chisel will do the trick. Looks like I need to go back to harbor freight tomorrow for some more goodies. I'll let ya'll know how it turns out.

I think I am going to go with my idea of grinding off the outer sleeve on the nut to see if I'm just not getting the peening out of the groove. I'd rather eat part of the $60 core charge than have to pay $180 labor at the shop.

Thats the problem with living in the great lakes region most cars are heavily corroded. My 2002 cavalier is already rusting pretty bad in the underbody. Cars just get eaten here. I'm sticking with the subaru for reliability and integrity. I don't think there are to many cars that let you walk away after rolling them over and then wrapping them around a tree ('96 outback). I wanted to save my pennies and get an '02 outback but my cavalier got totalled and forced my hand. Cheap subarus are a rarity around here it seems.

The breaker bar was 15" and I am trying to see if I can get help from someone on the 4x4 forum that I am a member of as far as using industrial tools goes. I just keep shaking my head, my family has had 7 or 8 subarus now and I have never had this much trouble with one.

Before my post drops away into second page oblivion let me reiterate my biggest concern so hopefully someone can provide some input. I have searched the board and everyone says that the axle nut is easy to get off but after 2 ratchets and a breaker bar I say neigh. Is there something I'm not doing? Here's a rundown of what I have been through so far. 1. Read the manual 2. Using a hammer and small screw driver bent the peening back out as far as I could get it. 3. Broke my 1/2" 6" extension 4. Tried to get the peening to come out further 5. Heated the nut 6. Broke my 1/2" ratchet 7. Broke my torque wrench (it's all I had at the house and was frustrated) 8. Doused the nut in PB blaster and went to bed 9. Resoaked the nut in PB blaster and went to buy a 1/2" breaker bar 10. Heated the nut and broke the breaker bar 11. Tried my impact wrench (I used it a few times throughout this process) So what is my next step? I was going to try using a better compressor at work but I found out that they got rid of the one I was going to try. I think I may take it to a shop but funds are limited. Thank you, Bryce Oh, one thing I was concidering was grinding off the outer neck on the nut to remove any chance that the peened portion is holding it on. Would this do anything or do I run the chance of effing things up worse by taking this course of action?

Hi all, Sorry for my first post being questions but I just got this car (yesterday infact) and it has some problems (it was a $400 car problems are expected). Anyways the front drivers side CV shaft is going out so me being a cheapskate I decided I would change it myself but after breaking 3 socket wrenches (2 with lifetime warantees against breakage) and 1 extension I feel that I may be doing something wrong or possibly I should take the car to a shop. My questions about this are "is there a technique I'm missing?" "Will a shop take my part and put it on for just labor?" Next on the list the previous owner said that the ABS compressor was just freewheeling even when the car was turned off so he unplugged it. I was curious and plugged it back in to no avail. Now there is an ABS warning light and the compressor isn't kicking on at all. Could a speed sensor have gone bad and kept the compressor running until it finally just failed and caused the fault? Lastly the airbag warning light is on. I haven't even read into the manual on this one but I'm wondering if it could be a bad sensor. Any help on this one would be appreciated. Sorry for running on, I'm exhausted and my grammar skills are lacking. Thank you very much, Bryce