[urq] Frozen Sub Frame Bolts - Help

[Louis-Alain Richard]

Hi Andrew,

You have a "nice" problem there...

Don't worry about the remaining stud: if you do get the subframe out, you
will unwind the remaining with your fingers. On my car, the rust-protectant
(wax based) in the chassis channels was covering the end of the bolts so
they were still in good shape and not frozen. But like in your car, one of
the bolts was frozen into a steel sleeve and very hard to unwind. But I
manage to remove it by careful work of the bolt; unwind, wind, unwind...
But that's not what you want to hear, right? :-)

The only solution I see is this one: (I have my old bushings here, as I type
this reply...)
1- Cut (horizontally) the bottom part of the bushings. One easy way to do it
is an angle grinder with a coarse grit. That way you'll see where to drill
in point 2.
2- Drill as many holes as you can do into the rubber between the 2 steel
sleeves (thick central one, thin outer one). You want to destroy the rubber
part of the bushing without destroying the subframe itself. Be careful.
3- Try to lever the subframe from the chassis, leaving there the bolt and
its "shroud" (the inner sleeve). 
4- Unwind the remnants (hopefully).

>From my experience with such a "frozen" bolt, you can't force it out of the
sleeve, nor spin it, the friction is just too high.

So before doing anything that will leave a (too short) broken bolt in the
captive nut, and considering a subframe is easy to find, you want to do all
you can to unwind the bolt and its "rust shroud".

Hope this helps,

Louis-Alain
83 Quattro, 
with only 1 (out of 8) stuck bushing bolt. Surprising for a Canadian car...




-----Message d'origine-----
Andrew Finney


OK, bad news first. 3 of my 4 rear subframe bolts
sheared off when I tried to remove them. Good news is
they sheared off at the bolt heads. Bad news is they
are frozen into the steel sleeve of the bushing and I
can't pry the subrame off the car. Any suggestions or
help with this? How can I get the subframe off!!!

When, and if, I finally get the subframe off, other
than prodigious heat application, is there a stud
removal tool/proceedure that I should use.

Thanks in advance.

Andrew Finney
1983 and 1984 UrQs.