GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Hi all. New to the forum. New to Vibes. I recently bought a 2010 Vibe. It needed some suspension work.

I've been having trouble removing the lower sway bar link nut. Living in the rust belt it's really welded on there.

The big issue I'm having is being able to access the bolt. With a stupid amount of adapters and swivels I can get an impact on there, but all my torque is gone at that point. I tried jacking the rest of the suspension up to make room but I still can't really get an impact on there nice. I can only get so long of a breaker bar in there because of the wheel well, plus I'm not that strong.

Is there any tips you guys know before I have to cut it off, or remove the control arm for better access? Thanks!

On these, I start by using a wire brush to clean the exposed threads from the end of the nut. Soak this area with a good penetrating lube like K&W Knock'er-Loose. https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/c/kn ... w05/401724

The problem is once the nut is broken loose, the threaded shaft the nut is on will spin. If you look at the threaded shaft, it will have either flats on the end of it or will have a Allen hex in the end of the shaft. This is so you can hold the threaded shaft from spinning as you loosen or tighten the nut. With a good air gun, once the nut is loose, you may need to keep working the nut off and on the threads. Back and forth, stopping to apply more lube when the nut is tighten back in. You may be able to work the nut off the rusted threads but wire brushing around all the threads really helps.

If your air gun can not break the nut loose, you need to use only a socket, as like you said, all the hammering energy is used up in all the joints when adding more extensions and adapters. In this case, you can not do that. I then use a box end wrench and a dead blow hammer to try and break the nut loose. This works most of the time to get the nut loose.

If that does not work, I use a air powered zip gun and chisel bit to split the nut. This does two things. The vibration from the zip gun breaks the rust free. Vibration is your best friend when getting rusted items apart. This also splits or opens up the nut, making the nut bigger, which is why the wrench does not fit the nut after doing this but the nut will be loose and come off. As with any tool, the more you pay for it, the better it is to use, which is why you see such a large price difference in air zip guns. The main thing is how good the gun is at regulating the speed as you pull the trigger. A cheap gun just is on/off and is hard to control. https://garagespot.com/best-air-hammer/

If a air zip gun is not in the works, then you can try a nut cracker or nut splitter. This goes over the nut and is tightened down, splitting the nut open. They come in different sizes, to work in tight spots with different size nuts.
Here is one example: https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/c/ev ... ert0/65126

I forgot to say: Besure to lube the threads on the nut cracker and work the lube into the full thread area.

In rusty areas, it can be faster to just sacrifice the nut to get things apart. I will end by saying use anti-seize on all the new part threads. This will make the job a lot easier to take apart the next time. You will thank yourself later for using the anti-seize now.

Thanks for the advice jolt.

Right now the issue isn't the shaft spinning on me. I just can't break the nut loose. I will try the box end wrench + hammer idea. If that doesn't work I will probably go buy a nut splitter. I don't have an air hammer, and I don't think I have a compressor that can properly supply it so that would be a much more expensive investment for me VS just the nut splitter. I'll give it a go this afternoon and report back

Well I wasn't able to get the nut off but I figured I'd post an update anyway. My vise grips were not strong enough to stop the stud from spinning. I sliced the links off with the angle grinder. Used a cutoff wheel to get most of the stud off, then a hardwheel to thin out the metal enough that it could be punched out. Not too bad.

Yeah, sometimes cutting parts off/out is the only solution BUT at least you tried other methods first. Looks like a lot of corrosion under there for a 2010 Vibe. What part of the country is this Vibe from? Rust belt states? Midwest? Update profile for us so we roughly know your whereabouts. Nice work so far and keep it up!

Thanks. Yeah I'm in Cleveland, Ohio. Everything turns to rust here. This car has some rust, but nothing too terrible. I'll be doing fluid film so hopefully I can get several good years out of this car at least.