Hi,

I'm replacing the front driveaxles on my 1997 Legacy Outback, and I have broken one of the balljoint pinch bolts. Everything else is finished, but I have yet to drill out and replace the pinch bolt. I'm thinking about either going to the dealership to try locating the same one, or just finding a stronger bolt in the same diameter, length and thread pitch. Does anyone know these dimensions? I didn't bring the one unbroken bolt to work with me and I would like to pick it up on the way home if possible.

 

Thanks.

Hi,

I'm replacing the front driveaxles on my 1997 Legacy Outback, and I have broken one of the balljoint pinch bolts. Everything else is finished, but I have yet to drill out and replace the pinch bolt. I'm thinking about either going to the dealership to try locating the same one, or just finding a stronger bolt in the same diameter, length and thread pitch. Does anyone know these dimensions? I didn't bring the one unbroken bolt to work with me and I would like to pick it up on the way home if possible.

Thanks.

 

I cannot answer your question, but if you have to drill out the pinch bolt, you'll probably ruin the female threads. You will then need a longer bolt of the same diameter with a lock nut at the end. Same thing happened to me twice, once on a Loyale and once with my present Legacy. The bolt and nut replacement works very well. Drilling through the bolt is not very pleasant though.

Good luck!

If you do manage to drill the bolt out with out futz'in up the threads you can get a replacement bolt from the dealership. I don't have a part number but the guys at the parts desk didn't have too much trouble finding a couple for me. Good luck.

you have to remove the ball joint bolt to remove the drive axles? that sucks.

That sucks. The same thing happened to me on both sides when I changed the balljoints on my 1996 legacy. I didn't want to deal with drilling it, so I just removed both strut towers and took them to the machine shop...they extracted both bolts no problem for $25. May be a good solution if you don't wanna risk damaging the female threads, and don't have a lot of industrial strenght drilling equipment to get the broken bolts out (the one I tried to drill was tough as hell...) It's not a good situation either way, you just gotta pick how you are going to deal with it. Best of luck...