I've "completed" my '02 Sedan rear strut & spring job, but I have problems and I'm in trouble and I need help.
First, I sheared off a swaybar U-bracket bolt. No big deal for now, I thought, but now I can't get the mount on the other side side bolted back in because the bracket is now sitting lower than the bolt hole. So my swaybar is only connected at the endlinks. How bad is this?
Second, and worse, the ******** who replaced my springs a couple months back sheared a pinch bolt and supposedly drilled it out successfully. They also replaced the pinch bolts with a 19mm bolt (the original is 18mm) with the numbers "10 9" on top. In tightening one of the bolts back up with a torque wrench to 60 ft lb, the bolt started spinning, probably somewhere around 50 ft lb. I backed out the bolt and found the last 3-4 revolutions of threads on the bolt had been stripped out. It appears to me that in "successfully" drilling out the original pinch bolt, they f-ed up the female threads in the spindle. My local parts store can't get the bolt in until Tuesday and even then I don't know that a new bolt is going to make a difference. I have no idea we've been driving this car screwed up.
So, the pinch bolt is not "pinching" properly because I can't torque it down all the way, but it's in place. As I understand it, this means that the rear corner of the car is essentially resting on that bolt. There is a gap of around 1-2 mm between the pinching part of the spindle and the strut tab.
I need to take the car in to a shop to have them deal with my sway bar brackets and look at the spindle threads for the pinch bolt but I need to determine whether I'm going to rip the strut tab off that strut as soon as I let the car down off the jack or drive it. Or am i just screwed and in need of a tow out of my garage?
Thanks all for your help.
First, I sheared off a swaybar U-bracket bolt. No big deal for now, I thought, but now I can't get the mount on the other side side bolted back in because the bracket is now sitting lower than the bolt hole. So my swaybar is only connected at the endlinks. How bad is this?
Second, and worse, the ******** who replaced my springs a couple months back sheared a pinch bolt and supposedly drilled it out successfully. They also replaced the pinch bolts with a 19mm bolt (the original is 18mm) with the numbers "10 9" on top. In tightening one of the bolts back up with a torque wrench to 60 ft lb, the bolt started spinning, probably somewhere around 50 ft lb. I backed out the bolt and found the last 3-4 revolutions of threads on the bolt had been stripped out. It appears to me that in "successfully" drilling out the original pinch bolt, they f-ed up the female threads in the spindle. My local parts store can't get the bolt in until Tuesday and even then I don't know that a new bolt is going to make a difference. I have no idea we've been driving this car screwed up.
So, the pinch bolt is not "pinching" properly because I can't torque it down all the way, but it's in place. As I understand it, this means that the rear corner of the car is essentially resting on that bolt. There is a gap of around 1-2 mm between the pinching part of the spindle and the strut tab.
I need to take the car in to a shop to have them deal with my sway bar brackets and look at the spindle threads for the pinch bolt but I need to determine whether I'm going to rip the strut tab off that strut as soon as I let the car down off the jack or drive it. Or am i just screwed and in need of a tow out of my garage?
Thanks all for your help.