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Front damper bottom bolt


Matthew Willoughby

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The bolt head looks old and corroded. The car is new to me so I was giving it a quick check. It snapped as soon as I tried to loosen it. I know they can be awkward so I thought I would loosen and re-tighten it so make sure it didn't seize but it looks like it was too late.

 

The damper is still on the car and I can't see how I can get it off.

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You will probalby end up sawing either side of the damper thro the bolt and will need to replace the damper meal inner part of the bush and the ally sleeve too.

You ideally need to leave some of the shank proud in the wishbone so you can weld a nut on.

How much of the bolt came out when it broke?

You might get easier access buy taking the wishbone and damper off

 

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When you come to replace the bolt, with a standard bolt the relationship between the shank and threaded section is such that there will be a lot of thread inside the bottom bush of the damper.  Bearing in mind that all the forces of that corner of the suspension will be taken on the bolt a better option in my opinion is to source a longer bolt with a correspondingly longer shank and crop the end threads off so that most of the shank will support the bottom bush.  There are schools of thought that suggest cropping a bolt reduces its strength but I feel happier with the shank doing the work rather than the thread.

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As with any bolt that is properly tightened, if the installation is properly engineered there should not be any radial load acting directly on the bolt shank. When the bolt is correctly torqued the axial load will clamp the surfaces together and friction should prevent the bolt and the components it is clamping from moving radially.

You can tell if there has been an incorrect radial load due to fretting between the bolt and the edges of the hole and typically the hole will become oval due to wear.

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