Front strut pinch bolt seized BUT WELL. Solutions?

[nmlss2006]

Remember the car with the engine that rattled?

Well - the engine doesn't rattle any more (more on the leaks in another post) but I need to replace a front strut because the spring is broken.

This would be fine and dandy except that in order to get the strut out of the knuckle one must release the pinch bolt.

The bolt is.. seized. By seized I mean that a 2135TiMAX is not making it move AT ALL. Neither is a breaker bar with a 4' tube added to the end. The whole strut will move, the bolt will not.

Is it POSSIBLE that whatever event caused the spring to break jammed the little 'ear' on the strut against the bolt and this is now preventing it from moving?

If this is the case, is it realistic to simply lever it out of the way?

Any other ideas?

[xraytube]

I just finished my front struts tonight. Drivers side went smoothly once I figured out a process for getting the new strut assembled with the spring. I have 4 woodworking clamps that I used to compress the spring enough to get the nut started (I had the main spring compressors on as well). The passenger side was another story. I couldn't get the pinch bolt off and ended up twisting the head off. I didn't use heat because it looked pretty good rust wise. El Wrongo. Mother F...er. I had to drill it out. What a PITA that was. 6 hrs later I finished somehow not killing the threads in the pinch feature.

[nmlss2006]

I am still at it. I think I am about one afternoon of cursing from just buying another knuckle. I am about to break out the Holmatro cutter, but at that point it will be out of spite, because the knuckle will get damaged.

[xraytube]

drill it out. Worst case you have to clean up the threads with an M12-1.5 tap. The knuckle is forging and is hard as hell. The replacement bolt is a M12-1.5x55 10.9.

[nmlss2006]

Following up on my own post: the 'wax trick' you see on youtube, wherein you use a torch to heat one end of the bolt and apply a wax candle to the other end so the wax gets wicked into the thread and helps loosen the bolt does, indeed, work.

It doesn't work as well as you see on YT - you WILL have to use the 2135TiMAX to get the bolt out even with the wax - but it does work. Even when three-times-a-day P'Blaster does not.

[racer2086]

Wow that's crazy. I've never heard of that.