Well, if you remember a while back i posted a thread with a video about a clung from the front driver side wheel area? as suspected, i broke something. I knew it right after i hit that huge bump on the highway, it was brutal!

the clamp which holds swaybar tight has 2 bolts and one of them snapped. swaybar is slightly loose. I need to get a bolt ASAP to replace it but not sure where can I get that bolt. it appeared to be something special. Any help?

Here are the pics:

Image019.jpg

Image014.jpg


P.S. while I was at it, i put on a new steering stabilizer. and damn it made the steering wheel very tight. Mine was shot and i didnt even know it. it was greasy and wayyyy too easy to push it in and out.

 

I would consider some grade #8 bolts to replace the broken bolt. Woody

 

its actually a stud that is in the lower control arm, not a bolt. However a bolt would replace the missing stud.

If you do want to replace it with a stud, the best way to do it is to take the nut off, goto home depot or lowes and figure out what thread pitch and diameter it is ( i dont remember off the top of my head) then order a stud of the same type

 

how many miles on your ride ???? That you needed to replace steering stabilizer bar ???? Maybe mine needs it !!!

 

It's a common problem, I have an 07 with 32k on it and mine appears to have started leaking, so thats the next thing I'll do. Although I might look at a non-stock upgrade to avoid the problem again.

 

Thanks guys!! How do I get the stud out? I don't think I have enough room to hammer it out.

I am glad to know it was nothing serious



I replaced mine when everything was working just fine. i didnt have any problem with my steering wheel at all. I just simply read a thread here and bought it. It was only 28 bucks shipped. The steering wheel did get a lot tighter.

 

Make sure you buy a higher quality stud than you can pick up easily at these places. You do not want a cheap Chinese stud made from old warships and old cars.

 

Muscle, thanks for posting this, as I tend to hit potholes a little harder with the even lower profile tires I have, I think I nay replace these bolts ahead of time to ensure no shearing takes place.

When you figure out what it takes to replace, will you kindly post the info. TIA

 

If we had a pic of the head of the stud we'd be much better equipped to give advice on removal.

It could be put in one of 4 ways:
1. Rusted in place.....basically just pushed in by hand and then torqued. You might get lucky with some WD-40 and a hammer.
2. Press fit....it is pushed into the part by means of a press. Much harder to get out and will require a bit of force.
3. Interference fit.....it was installed with one part hot and the other cold...when the temperatures return to normal the parts expand to make the stud fit tightly in place. Again. it could require considerable force to try to remove.
4. Projection welded....There are small projections on the bottom of the stud that are resisitively welded to the part. Another way of saying it's gonna require a good deal of force to remove what's left of the stud.

 

It also looks like it is mounted on a welded on tab with no clearance behind it... you may not be able to get behind it to put in a new stud or bolt..... I didnt look that closely at mine when I was doing the springs last week...

You might have to have a stud welded on.....

 

Damn! I hope not.

It did not look like it was welded in. It looked like it was pressed by a tool permanently. Not in any shape for any tool to remove it basically. Just like wheel studs, you gotta hammer it to get out. That is how it looked to me but I am not sure.

Boilerupxfire, you are welcome. I will for sure post anything new to this thread.

I only hit that bump twice and this happened. I am thinking it is not really that strong so yea maybe replacing yours is indeed a good idea. It is at a piece of cake location by the way so not a hard job (Unless the studs are stuck or welded)

 

[quote=apkano]
3. Interference fit.....it was installed with one part hot and the other cold...when the temperatures return to normal the parts expand to make the stud fit tightly in place. Again. it could require considerable force to try to remove.
quote]
You mean shrink. I assume when you say cold you mean room temperature. This is a car part and not the space shuttle so it would be just pressed in, if it is tight that is.

I would say its welded in place as the material is too thin for a workable press fit so it would turn when the nut was tightened.
Looks like it will have to be drilled out.

 

No, actually I meant what I typed.

I only spend about 250 days a year on the road as a consultant to the automotive industry. You'd be surprised what the OEM's are doing to shave a few pounds or speed up a process.

If the plate has a taper in the I.D. of the hole and the parts are assembled cold, when they heat up and expand they become a pretty permanent interference fit. Asian automakers are fond of this method.

 

If the parts are both cold then they will maintain the same size difference hot or cold. To achieve any useful change in the sizes the part with the hole is heated and the stud cooled.
Time is money so it is quicker to spot weld the large head of the headed stud. The head is not flat, so it would indicate to me that the small contact area of the head resistance welds to its mating part.
Heating and cooling parts take time, time to heat and time to cool, each of these processes take power which also costs money. If the parts are handled manually special precautions have to be taken.
The female part is quite thin, .06 - .08 and a band of an interference fit in this takes no effort to turn the bolt, as the steel will crush under the load and mushroom effectively reducing the grip.
On thick parts the interference can be minimal, and heat can be applied to reduce any dimensional interference at room temperature to a negative number when heated. On thin parts it just does not work the same as noted above, even more so on small diameter parts.
This part has to take the force of turning a nut on and off. The torque of turning a rusted nut is often greater than the torque specs to install it. In this case the stud broke as it was probably over tightened some time.
Heating the part 250°F. (to 320°F.) would result in an expansion of, .00000633 x .316 x 250 = .0005.
This is hardly a good tight fit and to get that the part would have to be exactly the same size as the hole to start and it would be a light press fit at that - size to size. Cooling the stud to achieve that shrinkage would involve cooling it down to room temperature 70°F - 250°F = -180°F which is hard to do and would gain a poor interference fit anyway - .001.

 

To use a PRW method on any application you have to account for the entire weld cycle. This involves bringing the parts into tooling, closing the gun, applying a set force, waiting for a set hold time, possibly applying a post-weld heat treat (if it's a hardened part, ie. group 3 or 4 steels), waiting for a 2nd hold time, opening the gun, and then finally removing the part. Compare that to an automated line where many parts are cooled at the same time through a moving helical line and are brought together with their female companion part (not cooled) and placed together on a rotating table where the parts never stop moving. BAW, Shuanghuan, Quingling, and Hafei all have been doing this for many years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by onehundred80

Heating and cooling parts take time, time to heat and time to cool, each of these processes take power which also costs money. If the parts are handled manually special precautions have to be taken.

Are you aware of the power requirements for a typical 150KVA MFDC transformer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by onehundred80

The female part is quite thin, .06 - .08 and a band of an interference fit in this takes no effort to turn the bolt, as the steel will crush under the load and mushroom effectively reducing the grip.

Typical Projection welds are not a weld at all. If you look closely at a prepared metallurgical sample of a projection weld you'd see no mixing of parent metals. Just about every projection weld is basically a solid-state bond. Projection welds are NEVER meant to be anything more than a holder for a fastener to be used in compression. Projection welds in the automotive industry are strictly used to aid in the assembly process. If that bracket is a hot-stamped AHSS group 3 or 4 material it can have a substantial amount of strength. Even if it's a relatively mild DP980 it's over 900MPa Tensile. If it's Martensitic it could be up to or more than 1600MPa tensile. I suppose I could find out, but I don't want to remove my lower control arm just to put it in my microhardness machine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by onehundred80

On thick parts the interference can be minimal, and heat can be applied to reduce any dimensional interference at room temperature to a negative number when heated. On thin parts it just does not work the same as noted above, even more so on small diameter parts.

I fail to follow this. On thicker parts the surface area is much larger, allowing a substantial amount greater force to be applied.

Quote:

Originally Posted by onehundred80

This part has to take the force of turning a nut on and off. The torque of turning a rusted nut is often greater than the torque specs to install it. In this case the stud broke as it was probably over tightened some time.

Actually, I'm more than positive the engineers that designed this part only intended for it to be fastened one time. I've dealt with thousands of automotive engineers over the years in this industry and have yet to find one who takes special precautions to make it easy to work or repair anything on a vehicle. Moreover, if ease of repair was what was on their mind then there's even more reason not to weld it. Once the weld is broken there's a substantial weakening of the structure with the loss of parent metal, and heat-cracking and metal embrittlement through the heat-affected zone. In this case I'm fairly sure the stud broke from exactly what the OP stated...... hitting a huge pothole.....twice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by onehundred80

Heating the part 250°F. (to 320°F.) would result in an expansion of, .00000633 x .316 x 250 = .0005.

You can take that up with the Asian and European automakers. I've only seen it in practice about 30 times on everything from M2 to M16 fasteners.

 

Musclefan21, you need to take a drill and some bits, a strong punch and heavy hammer, a propane torch, grade 8 bolt and nut and figure it out. It can't be worse than a ball joint that's riveted in that has to be replaced. I've had the bracket apart several times but can't say how the stud is inserted. From the lightweight stamped metal that surrounds the rubber on the sway bar I doubt it will cause you too much trouble. I'll most likely have the front of my car apart AGAIN this weekend and if you haven't solved your problem by then I'll take a real good look at it.

Les

 

My point is that shrink fits are not good when using this thickness of material.
If not welded then staking is another option.

 

Drill it out and replace with a Grade 8 nut & bolt

BTW - look like your leaking some type of fluid around your springs....

 

Thanks guys!

the fluid is oil, when i removed the oil filter, it leaked a bit.