W126 guide rod mounts
 

Hi,

My rubber boots on my current guide rod mounts are torn to shreds. At the moment, it seems to be riding ok, but I have new mounts to install anyway. My biggest concern is undoing the big bolts holding the 'subframe' to the body. I notice that if the captive square nut at the top breaks free, there isnt enough room in the slot to insert a suitably sized spanner to stop it from rotating.
I'm sure there must be a trick for doing this, can enybody please elaborate.

Kind Regards

Did this last fall. If the tab holding the nut breaks you are SOL big time. I spent probably 4 hours snapping those nuts with a cold chisal and a 3 pound short handle sledge. Every one broke on me.


Their is no way to get a wrench in their. You simply beat the nut to death and it will crack eventually.

Start soaking with penetrant and keep it wet for as long a period as possible.
I have wedged a pry bar into the opening to assist the weld in counterholding the nut.
Again, soak, soak, soak.

Lol, doesnt sound promising!! I think i'll keep soaking them with some WD40 or similar, maybe wiggling the bolts from time to time to take it into the thread.

I could butcher a large spanner with my grinder, and make a 'special tool', but i'd still have to make the openings a bit bigger.

Surely they could have made this job a bit easier!

Also, we have used a pneumatic hammer/chisel to distort the weld nut before attempting to loosen it.
Best of fortune my Friend.
dpk

Squirt some PBlaster into the slots. I doubt if you will have a problem undoing the bolt.

I read about a product called Wurth Rost off Ice... Apparently it freezes whatever you spray it onto to -20'c which does similar to heating... cracking the rust locking the bolt to the nut, and its a penetrating fluid too... so maybe i'll see about ordering some up.

Well I havent gotten around to doing the guide rod mount yet, but I did change out my bottom ball joints this weekend. What a PITA that was. I changed the brake discs and pads at the same time, and even that was a nightmare. There just didnt seem to be enough room between the new pads for the new disc to fit in between!
It gave me the change to soak the subframe nuts with penetrating fluid though. Gave them many squirts throughout the day.

The trick with the rear pads is you open the bleed screw and push the piston back into the caliper. Then you can slide them in one at a time. Keeping the calipers mounted is the trick.

The rears were real easy, the pistons pushed back in all the way without opening the bleed screw. It was the fronts that were the pain, the pistons pushed in all the way, but the rubber gaiter on the piston seemed to get in the way of the metal 'shim' that clips around the pistons.
They are in now anyway, and seem to be run in now i've done a couple hundred miles.
I was using Textar pads and Meyle discs at the front, maybe they are just slightly thicker by a hairs width than OEM.

Got to change my handbrake shoes tonight... wish me luck. When I took the rear discs off, one of the shoes was down to the backing plate, so well in need of replacement.

Have fun, did the shoes and a bunch of springs a couple of years ago. Just swapped the discs last week and the shoes still look good. As long as you don't drive with the parking brake on they should last just about forever.