Separating the Sway Bar Link from the Strut

[jluetjen]

I'm stuck trying to replace the front sway bar links.

I've soaked it with PB-Blaster
I've applied heat (map-gas) until everything was starting to smoke.
I've given it whacks with a hammer.
I've tried spinning it with a crescent wrench, but the surfaces are starting to round.
I've tried prying it out with a "pickle-fork". No-go!
I recently got the Swabish-Tool ball joint separator (which works awesome for all of the ball-joint bolts!), but it won't fit in this location. I've got a smaller generic separator, but that's not working either.

The frustrating thing is that I did the rear sway bar links about 18 months ago, and I don't remember it being an issue.

Anybody got some other tricks that work?

[BLUE11]

I ended up cutting mine so I could get a socket on the 17mm flats that you hold to tighten putting an impact driver with socket on that then hitting it out as it started to spin. One came out after 3 hits the other - well it fought for nearly two hours

[jluetjen]

Yeah BLUE11, I ended up there too. I did the same as you, but then the 17mm flats rounded -- and the piece is still in there!

So I put some more PB Blaster on it and moved to the rear suspension for a while.

I'm thinking cutting that 17 mm head off and trying to push it through that way.

But before I do that I'm using a stud removal tool (it clamps down tightly to grab the threads of a stud) to try and spin the link in the hole.

I'll let you know how it works out.

[tcora]

I ran into that last year, not sure if it was front or rear. 3 of 4 came out just fine, of course.

I ended up cutting the threaded section off flush to the housing, and then VERY CAREFULLY drilling the bolt. I did not try to completely drill it out, as I was concerned about hitting the housing with the drill, but I did take away maybe half the diameter of the link.

Once I had done that (plus some more heat and Kroil), I was able to beat it out with a proper size drift and a 5 lb hammer.

It was not even remotely fun, but it worked.

All the new ones have anti-seize on them:-)

[jluetjen]

I guess I'll need to try that approach. I've had the same problem on the 3 I've tried so far. Note, I also made sure that there is no load on the bearing carrier by removing all of the suspension links. On the 3rd example, on the back (ball side) will spin with the impact wrench on it (it's not rounded btw), but the front side doesn't move. I've tried pulling the front side through with a stack of wafers, but still no luck. I've also tried using an air hammer (or a 16 oz) hammer to drive it back. Still nothing. I guess I'll try cutting the threaded portion flush next. Thanks for the response.

[jluetjen]

The agony continues!!!!

Looking for solutions on YouTube just results in videos shows how these bolts just pop out after a few minutes of effort. They're not helping me.

Redoing the suspension is supposed to be a 20 hour job, but I think that I've spent that amount just cursing and swearing over these (blankety-blank, cough, cough) bolts!

I tried drilling out the right rear bolt from the front, and definitely got as far in as the flange from the strut. The hole ended up off-center, but since I started with a small drill and then stepped up until it just broke through the diameter I don't think that I did any permanent damage. The strut definitely has some movement (of maybe a cm), but the bolt still won't come out. I've tried alternating banging on it and blasting it with a MAP-gas torch. Nada.

Curiously, I tried using a punch at the base of the drilled hole, but something (the strut flange maybe) grabbed the end of the punch and wouldn't let me pull it out. Rack up another 20 minutes trying to finagle that out by loading and unloading the base of the strut with a jack until it finally freed up the punch.

Using the impact wrench on the ball end (after removing the ball) merely resulted in breaking the welds which were holding the nut to the shaft under the ball. So that resulted in another hour-plus getting the nut off so that it's out of the way. I've now cut the shaft down to a few mm's above the bearing carrier. Then I've used the cut-off wheel to notch a cross in the shaft to help me center the drill.

Next I'm going to start drilling from the back and see if I can get anywhere.

In the meantime, I've still got the LR bolt to remove, and I can only believe that it will be just as bad. And I still haven't managed to get either of the front bolts out.

UGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

Thanks for listening/reading. Hopefully I'll have some better news on the next installment.

[tcora]

Fingers crossed.

[BLUE11]

Ah man I feel for ya I really do. But you know after all this the left one will just fall out.

[jluetjen]

I'm getting nowhere -- slowly -- on this.

A few options that I'm considering...
1) Remove the strut and bearing-carrier assembly and then try to work it out on a bench. This will also allow me to use a drill press to potentially drill out the bolts, and see what I'm working on. I'll also be able to get more of a swing for the hammer as opposed to the limited swing witin the fender. But... What are the potential gotchas there??? The top of the strut would seem to come out cleanly. But I'll need to remove the brake calipers and disconnect the parking brake cable, not to mention the connections for the ABS sensor. Pulling the hub off the axle most likely would be helpful, but not necessarily required. This will require breaking the ~300 lb-ft nut holding the axle into the hub, and then torqueing it back up to the same level afterwards.

2) Recruit someone from the NE area who knows 986's or 996's to come over to my place to help.

3) Reassembly the suspension without the sway bars connected, and have the car flat-bedded to a shop to have them swap out the sway bar links. Unfortunately I'll wind up having to pay the higher (you tried to fix it first) price, not to mention earn the scorn of the shop for F'ing up the job.

Thoughts?

[tcora]

Originally Posted by jluetjen

I'm getting nowhere -- slowly -- on this.

A few options that I'm considering...
1) Remove the strut and bearing-carrier assembly and then try to work it out on a bench. This will also allow me to use a drill press to potentially drill out the bolts, and see what I'm working on. I'll also be able to get more of a swing for the hammer as opposed to the limited swing witin the fender. But... What are the potential gotchas there??? The top of the strut would seem to come out cleanly. But I'll need to remove the brake calipers and disconnect the parking brake cable, not to mention the connections for the ABS sensor. Pulling the hub off the axle most likely would be helpful, but not necessarily required. This will require breaking the ~300 lb-ft nut holding the axle into the hub, and then torqueing it back up to the same level afterwards.

2) Recruit someone from the NE area who knows 986's or 996's to come over to my place to help.

3) Reassembly the suspension without the sway bars connected, and have the car flat-bedded to a shop to have them swap out the sway bar links. Unfortunately I'll wind up having to pay the higher (you tried to fix it first) price, not to mention earn the scorn of the shop for F'ing up the job.

Thoughts?

All viable solutions. I was replacing the struts, when I ran into this problem, so they were already out of the car. Rather than pull off the big nut at the end of the axle, I found it fairly straightforward to remove the 8 (I think) smaller fasteners attaching the axle to the trans.

[Gianni at Pelican Parts]

What do they say? Every 20 minute job is just one bolt away from becoming a 3 day ordeal.

Definitely good pointers here for anyone encountering the problem in the future.

[jluetjen]

Yes -- for those of us who do not live in climates with year-round sunny, dry conditions -- this is a real thing! Beware! -- it's not something that shows up in the YouTube "How to..." videos.

https://youtu.be/ZAuv7RV7Sz4

The good news is that I have found that you can get good used bearing carriers for $85 from well-known Porsche dismantlers.

Time to take the angle cutter to the bearing carriers!

BTW -- this condition is not limited to Porsche. The 2001 VW Golf that my daughters used before I bought the Boxster had the exact same arrangement for the sway bar links. I believe that many BMWs do too, so this is not a unique problem to Porsches.

I figure that I'll replace the bearings while I'm in there.

I'll try to post some pictures of the condition of the bolts once I get them removed from the car. Needless to say, I'll also be swabbing all of the new bolts with never-seize too! Given Germany's climate, it's not clear to me why Porsche put them in dry, except for the costs associated with adding the lube.

[jluetjen]

I think that I need to pull-back my comment about Porsche installing the parts dry. There is obviously a blue tint on all of the bolts that come out. I suspect that this might be thread-locker -- which I believe leads to the question -- would thread locker constitute an insulator between the two metals?

It appears that the answer is "Yes", it is. While this might be bad from the perspective of electrical connections, it should be good from a dissimilar metal corrosion perspective.

[jluetjen]

I've been thinking about this issue. A question for any chemists on the board -- would it make sense to install a magnesium tab onto each corner as a sacrificial element? If you look on this attached graph that I borrowed from this video, magnesium is far to the left of even Aluminum.



Having an air-cooled 911 with lots of magnesium on it, I know that Magnesium for forever "trying to return to the sea. This got me thinking... Being a boat owner, I've always seen the sacrificial tab which is put on outboard motors,

So why not put some magnesium onto the aluminum bearing carrier to act as a sacrifical anode? What kind of magnesium?

- Drill a hole in a piece of one of these or else one of these and bolt it to the bearing carrier?
- Wrap the carrier in some of this Mg tape?
- This magnesium washer looks like it could be interestiing.
- If drilling magnesium is not your thing, how about this zink tab? That should be easy enough to drill to fit one of the holes on the bearing carrier.
-- There are also a number of other alternatives.

Thoughts?

[Ronpor]

Living in Australia we have no issues with corrosion of suspension components. However, having worked in Europe and the U.S. I was horrified at the amount of corrosion in cars in those countries. Even aluminium engine parts suffered. I don’t see how the magnesium component would save your suspension. Partially may but not total. Would the occasional spray of WD40 help ?

[jluetjen]

Yes. Liberally apply WD-40 each spring and fall. I've found that it does a great job on the wheels too.

[jluetjen]

Here's a picture of why I was never going to get the sway bar link out of the bearing carrier no matter how much I soaked the bolt or used other methods to loosen it.



In addition to the reddish brown iron oxide is white aluminum oxide which might be the bigger problem. An industrial use for aluminum oxide is abrasives because it is very hard and gritty. Much harder than iron oxide. Once that started to form in the threads, it's over.

So at the end of the day, I don't think that this bolt was ever going to come out of the carrier without destroying the carrier as I did here. I'll cut up one the carriers that I haven't already hacked up so we can get a good view of what was going on where the steel bolt interfaced with the aluminum carrier.

[tcora]

That’s just plain ugly. Red rust tells me that the coating on the steel was compromised at some point along the way. I replaced mine at 160k+ miles (car is driven year-round in northwest NJ) and I saw none on mine.

[jluetjen]

This all started because I had a slight thunk or slap in the right rear when going over bumps, and the right-front developed a noticeable squeak in compression or rebound. The car has about 110k miles. Other than those two issues (the squeak was far more annoying than the thunk), the car felt fine.

I've since found the following issues (so far)...

- The inner boots on both halfshafts were significantly cracked.
- This right-rear bump-stop was either incorrect or mangled. The correct arrangement is shown on the left.

- The right front shock bearing plate was spent and the grease all dried up.

-The right side parking brake cable cover was cracked completely around just where it goes into the tube for the rear bearing carrier.

And I haven't even dis-assembled the left side of the car yet!

[jluetjen]

Here's a picture of the condition of the sway bar linkage bolt inside the bearing carrier. The bolt wasn't mangled by my attempts to remove it. Instead I cracked the carrier flanges off once I had cut close to the bolt hole. You can see about 6 threads of the bolt covered in aluminum oxide. The shank on the other hand is fairly clean with only a few patches of aluminum oxide. As the periodic table suggests, there really isn't much in the way of iron oxide in the interface area. This is because the aluminum will "sacrifice" itself and oxidises first.