You may have to take the rear spindle off the car with the strut attached.
Pic of bolt from '03 not rusty car and a new bolt. Any I have pulled are not stuck in the threads but the clearance hole is filled with rust, bolt rust and knuckle rust. Rust expands from source steel so the rust is a tight fit. Any I have done will move a slight part of a turn before locking. I have a impact wrench and worried them out tiny bit at a time. Also hitting the head with a big hammer loosens the rust in the clearance hole. This not one of Ford's better ideas. Other brands of cars can be worse.
I've had good luck using heat then quench with PB Blaster several times including in the gap. Each time using a breaker bar to carefully and slowly work the bolt back and forth, each time it would go further. I just used a propane torch, not the hotter MAPP gas or oxy/acetaline. It might have helped with a hotter torch but this seemed to work. I've done that 4 times now and haven't broken one off yet. Good luck!
Update: I gave up on the passenger's bolt for now and began working on the driver's side. Amazingly, it can out with relative ease. I may try the heat suggestion.
For now, I'm gonna try to knock out the driver's side install.
You need a propane torch. Map gas is even better. Heat up the back side of the knuckle back and forth along the length of the bolt for a short time. Then hit it with an impact or breaker. Work back and forth a few times to break all the rust loose and it will come right out.
I use a oxyacetylene torch on the threaded portion to undo the loctite. You have to heat it to 300 degrees to break the bond. Then you have to deal with thecorrosion on the shank portion. Back it out a quarter turn if possible and then heat and soak with penetrating oil in the crack near the nut. Alternate that process and keep your fingers crossed.
I snapped one off, had to drill it out and just through bolted it back together.
Soaked it, heated it, I was doomed to the snap 'n drill procedure.
Use a grade 8 bolt when doing this procedure.
OEM bolt '9.8' metric code, rough equiv to grade 8. OEM 12 mm with .425 shank. Yeld strngth ~74,000 pounds. Gross overkill on Ford design. I drilled out a Dodge ~'95 same design, roughly quarter inch dia bolt. Longer and very hard to drill. The steel spring support on the strut maybe half as thick as Bulls, just collapsed and let the spring fall down, rear bumper near the ground. Fortunatley it was in this guy's driveway when it gave way.
If you don't have a torch or an impact driver, get yourself a section of 6 foot steel pole and slide it over your breaker bar for massive extra torque. Get someone to hold the end so it's at 90 degrees to the bolt head to give you the maximum amount of torque, along with lots more liberal application of penetrating oil. Work it gently back and forth, give the bolt a few cracks with a hammer to loosen the rust...That's how I got the pinch bolts off the front struts on my wagon.
After some date. G-1 for sure had bolt same and iron front knuckle.
If my memory is still working. :lol2:
As for breaking, new bolt torques max ~89# twist off about 105#.
rusty, thinned shank, maybe 70#. Many of us could easily exceed that with a 16" flex handle. My IR very old electric impact will not break the bolt.
With a long enough pole over the breaker bar, you can get these things loose without breaking a sweat, such is the awesometastic power of a long lever with buckets of torque!
Heat! a crap ton of heat. if you try to back them out without heating the knuckle they will break. I broke two on two different cars. The third car I used MAPP gas on both sides and they backed out without issue.
About how long did you hold the torch on the bolt?
I'm assuming you did it at each end, like the guy in the video.
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