m80kmb

New Member
Car goes into garage tomorrow for U/V joints on front prop shaft 'cos they got power tools and if necessary oxy acetylene torches!!.. Job is F***in' impossible without removing cross chassis member, and its F***in' impossible to undo the flange nuts and bolts holding it to the chassis rails.:mad:

Sorry to offend but I have all right spanners open ended and ring ones, and wads of sockets yet 10 years of power wrenched nuts & bolts being in situ have defeated me, I could only get three out of the eight chassis rail fixing bolts undone in two evenings work and that has left me with knackered biceps.. and a foul temper :mad:

Invested in a nut splitter (!!?) no good as nuts are flanged. Invested in bolt remover, no good, no room to get spanner or socket wrench in at right angle, tried blow torch to heat nuts and bolts up, no joy. Penetrating oil overnight.......waste of space all of it..

Tried to get at prop shaft rear joint bolts without taking cross member out..no chance!!!. Last straw was spanner slipping off prop shaft bolt and rounding it off, a badly skinned knuckle and a black eye.. the dog learned a whole new set of swear words, and if anybody had offered me £2 for the vehicle I'd have taken it at 11.00 pm last night..

I've put my hand up to the garage for butchering one of the nuts so badly so they are going to burn it off.

Frustrating part is that they agree whole job is two hours tops :( ..but at least at £48 an hour labour they ain't robbing me on dealer rates and they are happy to use my supplied new u/v joints and bolts .

Will post results tommorrow,,good or bad???!!gggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr if it gets done for under £120 I'll be back in love with the old bus again, but she's gonna have to be good to me for while.
 
Had similar problems with getting mine off. Turns out I just needed to get her on a lift to ease the access...luckily a friend runs a garage so put her up on his high lift and used a threaded socket set piece...worked a treat, off in 10 minutes!

Not something I'd try to do again lying on me back though thats for sure!
 
Garage did the job in an hour, and charged me two!!!! I know 'cos I saw it out of workshop but I didn't argue as they did the job and I was too ****ed off...they didn't remove the chassis cross member so they must have tools i ain't got.......anyway back on road drives a treat, and now i need to replace front airsprings. Back ones done previously but car labours to get up in morning and compressor getting v.hot. as back ones were sh***ed ( see post "wanna see wot knackered air springs look like")

Ho Hum..reminds me of setting up with missus 30 years ago, its not until you get intimate AND familiar on a day to day basis that you start finding out the really niggly faults that turn into major issues with time...;)
 
I'm surprised but not surprised you had trouble removing the prop shaft nuts - they can be a right bugger at times
Over the years I have managed to pick up a pair of thin wall ring spanners that are just perfect for the job
The secret is to hold the bolt end still and try and crack the nut end if that makes sense - the idea being that a spanner gets a far better bite on the deeper face of the lock nuts than the thinner bolt head so tends to slip/round less
I have heard these are good
PROSOCKET Propshaft Bolt Removal Tool
but never found a need for them yet
Maybe practice makes perfect - junp underneath and have another go at the newly fitted ones ! :)
 
Why why why do I never learn !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Attempted exactly the same thing - had exactly the same problem !!!!!!!!!

I'm ####ing livid ! Would have set fire to it if I didn't live in a stupid smoke free zone !
 
Easy with correct tools. Why you would need to remove cross member defeats me. Prop bolts are 3/8" UNF 9/16 AF by the way not metric ****.
 
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