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73-87 Chevy _ GMC Trucks => Brakes, Frame, Steering & Suspension => Topic started by: Irish_Alley on October 19, 2010, 07:00:20 pm

Title: steering arm woes
Post by: Irish_Alley on October 19, 2010, 07:00:20 pm
Well I drove my truck all day no problem. Then I let my brother take it to work while I watched his kids. A couple minutes after leaving I get a call he asked is my truck always hard to turn right, thought maybe it was just something that happened so I blew it off well half hour later he calls me and tells me something broke and as soon as I heard him tell me what it was I just thought how lucky he was That the bolts broke while he was turning into work and not on a turn on the road. (http://i333.photobucket.com/albums/m387/rebel_cowboy_83/imagejpeg952.jpg)
now how am I supposed  to get them out I thought of an easy out but I know I couldn't get the bolts to budge with an impact before this happened. Think I'm going to try pb on her and let her soak then go with the easy out any tips would be greatly appreciated.
Title: Re: steering arm woes
Post by: Grim 82 on October 19, 2010, 07:46:18 pm
That sucks. The gas wrench is your friend. Good luck
Title: Re: steering arm woes
Post by: beastie_3 on October 21, 2010, 12:06:22 pm
Soak them with a lubricant and heat. Or its time for crossover steering.
Title: Re: steering arm woes
Post by: 78 Chevyrado on October 22, 2010, 09:14:27 am
soak them with lubricant, and just tap on the part.  you don't have to beat, you'll wear yourself out, just tap it.  it works the lube even farther down into where ever it needs to go.

If you can heat up the part the bolts are in, it will release the bolts and they'll be way easier to turn.  NOTE:  you have to heat the part really fast, so that it'll expand to release the bolt but before the bolts get hot enough to expand too.
Title: Re: steering arm woes
Post by: beastie_3 on October 22, 2010, 01:49:24 pm
Glad there was no further damage.
Title: Re: steering arm woes
Post by: motion427 on October 24, 2010, 05:36:48 pm
What 78 Chevyrado wrote.But after we heat them up,we put water on it to cool it off quick.It shocks the material and most of the time it comes off.

Yes those can be a pain in the ass to come off.Again,good luck.
Title: Re: steering arm woes
Post by: Irish_Alley on October 25, 2010, 02:35:47 am
Well took the whole knuckle off just cause I didn’t even want to waist any time on it. but found a problem after putting in new ball joints the tie rods can connect from the bottom or the top to the knuckle depending on year and style and what ratio you have go figure how that works well mine was a 76-80 second design connects from the bottom and the knuckle I used connects from the top. Now I have to either try to ream out the knuckle hole so the tie rod will fit in or hope I can have one side connected on top and the other connected on the bottom. Then I noticed my rag joint was all screwed up so that got replaced with one lying around