I'm trying to replace the front sway bars on my 350Z, and one of the two nuts that holds the stock bar on was very tight, and I rounded it in trying to get it off.

Before doing too much damage, I squirted some WD-40 on it. Didn't help. Eventually, I used vise-grips, but they just rounded it further. (It's a 10mm/1.25 flange nut, if that makes any difference to anyone)

So now I'm stumped. I have an impact driver, but there's not enough clearance in that area to use it.

I'm thinking I'll have to take it to my repair shop and ask them to get it off somehow (and perhaps replace the sway bar while they're at it).

But if any of my fellow Z-ers have any suggestions that will save me a couple of bucks, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks.

 

do you have a dremel

 

Yes, but a fairly low powered battery one. What tool do you suggest?

 

ive used a grinder with a cutting wheel on it before, but idk if the location where the bolt is at has threads on it or not. if not i would just cut the head off. if so the you could cut the head off and drill the bolt out and then use a tap die set.

 

rather than cut it off, you can grind flat 2 opposing sides of the stripped nut and get a wrench on it

 

Try using a 12-point socket that's 1 size smaller (9mm if your nut is 10mm), and pound/force the socket onto the nut. If it's grabbing well, you should be able to get the nut off. And instead of using WD-40, try using PB-Blaster, works 10 times better IMO.

 

thats a good idea, never thought of that

the only problem with a 12 point is it might just round it off more. i would try a 6 point

 

Is there room enough for a nut-cracker?

 

Hi mate. The same thing happened to me. heat it up with a blow torch and get a sharp chisel and use the chisel to hammer the nut round. Its hard going but slowly it will come off.

 

Update: I've tried most of the suggestions offered here, and a few others as well, but that damned nut is still on.

I got a nut splitter, but (and I'm sorry I forgot to mention this) it's a flange nut, so between the rounding I've done to it and the flange, the nut splitter won't hold onto the thing. As I tighten it down, it just slides up off the nut, and there's no way to keep it on. So that's out.

The last thing I did this evening was buy a tool set like this, as well as some PB Blaster, which was recommended elsewhere. I'll give them a shot tomorrow, and if I still have no joy, it's off to the shop.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll post a further update tomorrow.

 

just remember when you go to replace them with new bolts make sure you use stainless, you wont have this problem in the future if you do

 

The "bolt" is the end link, not a separate item.

ETA: But you mean the new nut, right?

 

If you're installing aftermarket sway bars and it is the nut on the stock endlink that's the problem, why not just cut off the endlink? It would make sense to get aftermarket endlinks to go with the new swaybars.

 

Possible, but I'm going to the track on Friday, so it would mean express charges. But I'll look into it. Any recommendations for endlinks?

But as I think more about it, I'm not sure I have the tools to cut the endlink anyway. At least not very easily.

 

Track day coming up, gotcha.

As for the endlinks, I used to have a set of the SPL ones. They were solid but my only problem with them was that the heim joints were open and needed to be lubed every so often. If I had to do it over again, I'd go with Powergrids or something that was smiliar to stock but more beefy (aka sealed and maintenance free).

Best of luck with the rounded nut.

 

After a little reading here, I see that the PowerGrid endlinks don't work with the 350EVO sway bars, and there were some references to the Whitelines having problems of some kind, although I'm not clear what. That would seem to leave the SPLs and the Nismos.

Am I missing anything? Any suggestions or recommendations for choosing one over the others?

Oh, and on reading one of those threads, I realized I could take remove the stock sway bar just by undoing the other end of the endlink from the A-arm. Then I can work on the bad nut with the parts off the car.

D'oh!

That may make things significantly simpler.

 

Thanks for all the help. Here's the final outcome.

The nut remover tools I mentioned didn't work. I bought two sets from different stores: with one set the smallest was too large, and with the other the largest was too small. Typical Murphy's Law!

I had been hoping in the latter case that I had rounded enough off the 17mm nut that the 16mm tool would work, but no joy. (Fortunately, I was able to return them all, since I never actually used them.)

I tried the PB Blaster, along with banging on it with an impact driver, but they didn't work.

Finally, I brought it to the mechanic I've been going to for the last 30+ years, and he got it off, apparently with a Snap-On socket and a larger impact driver. (I wasn't there to watch.)

With the endlink finally freed, I was able to install the new sway bar with only a little more knuckle scraping, muttering, and cursing. I've been out for a test drive, and everything seems fine.

Anyway, all's well that ends well, and the worst of this was the annoyance and frustration that a job that should have taken a couple of hours, at most, stretched out to three days.

Thanks all for your suggestions.

 

They sell a bolt out kit at autozone or sears IRWIN or Craftsman, whichever you prefer, these work good for future reference, and stick with the pb blaster, I swear by it, sometimes it takes a while for it to work.

 

The smallest Craftsman was too big and the biggest Bolt Out was too small!

I let PB Blaster soak overnight, then gave it another squirt the next day.

Anyway, it's all over now. Lesson learned, I hope.

 

Glad to see it worked out. As mentioned earlier, a nut-splitter works too. It's a vise-like device that chisels into the nut and cracks it in half. Irwin also makes these counter sockets that dig into the nut as you loosen it. You can use a breaker bar to pry it loose. The bad thing about those is the bolt itself may snap. I'd use the splitter when you absolutely need the bolt in good shape. The other day I helped a fellow forum member crack loose the 2 bolts used to adjust the ARC strut bar. For some reason the nuts wouldn't come loose, so we could adjust the bar. I just ended up using 2 breaker bars on each end with 6-point sockets. We snapped the bolts on both of them, then bought new ones...