Removing radius arm nuts

[atvkid4eva]

Hey guys i need to replace the radius arm bushing on my 97' 4x4. Will acetylene be enough to break the nuts for the radius arms free? the truck has 200k miles and they have never been touched. I dont wanna snap them off. Any advice is great. thanks!

 

[pillen140]

mine were rusted like no tomorrow, and i heated them with map gas and got them off easy enough. might want to grab the radius arm with a pipe wrench on the other side of the bracket to keep it from twisting if the arm itself is really rusty.

 

[disciplerocks]

Heat, a 1 1/4" wrench, and some shit in your britches.

 

[michowski]

A few days before you plan to do this job, soak them in penetrating oil before your daily commutes to help break up some of the rust.

 

[scotts90ranger]

the size is 1 1/8".

I was able to get all of mine loose with a 25" breaker bar with a standard depth socket, no heat needed but I'm not in the rust belt

 

[disciplerocks]

the size is 1 1/8".

Correct. Dont know what I was thinking.

 

[kevinsranger]

if you really think you are going to have issues breaking them loose, cut the nuts off or use a nut splitter, my friend has an old 1980 ford f250 or something, and i told him to get new nuts before we decided to his his bushings, and of course he said no it'll be no problem, well we snapped the stud off the radius arm and had to weld a bolt the same size back in

 

[88_Eddie]

i went and bought a 1 1/8" wrench and hit it with my 3 pound mallet, came right off. i didnt have an rust though.

 

[atvkid4eva]

Ive dealt with a lot of rusty bolts, but the threads on the arm kind of look like they r rusting away lol..what if one were to break? i dont wanna pull the whole radius arm off to replace it

 

[pillen140]

If it does break, you will need a new one. If you do what I said with the pipewrench, it shouldn't. My threads on my radius arms were really bad, could hardly tell they were threads! The heat helped a ton. Didn't even have to use a breaker bar once I got them hot enough

 

[kevinsranger]

If it does break, you will need a new one. If you do what I said with the pipewrench, it shouldn't. My threads on my radius arms were really bad, could hardly tell they were threads! The heat helped a ton. Didn't even have to use a breaker bar once I got them hot enough

+1 i didnt put much effort at all trying to break them free before i said f-this and put some heat to them to unbond the factory loc tite

 

[brinker88]

Wow...Im in the rust belt and they came off with just a wrench. No PB blaster, heat, hammer, nothin...

If I were you, I'd go to a hardware store and get new nuts. They're just 3/4 course steel lock nuts. About 2 bucks a piece. And run a thread chaser on the radius arm.

ALSO do NOT forget: They are only supposed to be torqued to 100 ft/lbs NO MORE

 

[crawlin91]

hit em with the mapp gas for 10-20 seconds, you are replacing the bushings anyway but they shouldnt melt and the nuts will come off with ease.