Godholio

I was turning a corner and giving a little throttle the other day in my 66, when I heard the unmistakable and indescribable sound of metal suddenly turning violent, in the vicinity of the right rear wheel. Uh oh. Then the engine revved freely and it was pretty clear power was not getting where it needed to go. Got it towed home by a guy in a surburban (who happened to be in my squadron a couple of years before I got there and happens to be the son of one of my neighbors...talk about coincidence). I finally got to take a peek at it today. Expecting a snapped axle shaft, or (more likely) a well-destroyed U-joint, I instead saw this:



I've never been so happy to see sheared bolts. Now, to figure out how to get to the other side of them.

landshark 454

That is an easy fix. move shaft out of way, by loosening the camber bolt, on the strut rod, after noting its position, and rotating the arm outward. Pull the cotter pin, lock the parking brake up, and remove the nut. The flange should slide right off. You can then remove the bolts, or replace the flange. Slide the flange back on, torque the nut to spec, ( and more, if needed to align the cotter pin hole), place shaft into postion, loosely install new PROPER bolts, and greased french locks, reposition camber bolt and tighten. Then tighten the flange bolts to spec.

Then go replace the bolts on the other side, with the proper bolts. Rich

Bluestripe67

Then go replace the bolts on the other side, with the proper bolts. Rich[/QUOTE]
I believe that would be grade 8. Dennis

67vetteal

Also, once you get a clear shot at looking at the brpken bolts examine them. I suspect you will see hairline shinny spots across the broken stubs. This means that these bolts were failing for awhile. I've never seen this type failure under low load. Keep us posted, Al W.

midyearvette

......must be the wrong grade bolts......

Vogie

Right bolts but insufficient torque will have the same end result.

Godholio

How tight do they need to be?

Ron Miller

70 ft lbs will get it

Godholio

To make sure I'm on the same page (still a noob when it comes to some of the terminology), the camber bolt is on the "inside" end of the strut?

DansYellow66

Yes, below the differential. Mark it's current position first so you can put it back in the same position after the repairs.

After you get a chance to fix this let us know what bolts were installed (assuming the opposite side are the same) and if the others are tight. I think this is the first time I've seen that connection fail in waching this site for several years.

Dan

Godholio

Will do, but it might be a few days...we're getting ready to deploy so work can be a little longer than usual.

Godholio

Well, this isn't going to help matters any.



Can't get the bolt out...it hits the "trunk" floorpan (back is on the left, front is on the right). Searching for tips, I found one post that confirmed my fear:
It seems like inserting the bolt the other way would just make it hit the spring? Does it actually clear the spring when its done right? In my AIM it actually looks like mine is installed correctly.



I gotta get this taken care of...there's a Hooters car show coming up.

shemp

The camber bolt is inserted backwards,cut it off and get new ones.
They are about $25 each. Should be inserted from the rear to the
front. Shemp

riogrand

You could unbolt the bracket from the differential.

Godholio

Yeah, this is the plan. Taking a dinner break for a bit.

1snake

There is no reason to remove the cam bolt. Only loosen it so you can rotate the cam, thus pulling the flange away from the trailing arm.

Jim

Godholio

Good call...it took some "coaxing" with a rubber mallet and the floor jack, but I got it back in place and was able to rotate to where I could get to the flange nut. The cotter pin was kind of mangled and took a bit of work...now I can see that the threads exposed past the nut are pretty mangled also. My camera won't focus on it, but suffice it to say the threads are distorted and the nut is not going to come off without a fight. But first I'll have to pick up a 1" wrench, I think. So I'm done til tomorrow, I guess.

Godholio

UPDATE!

Got the flange out, you can clearly see what's left of two of the bolts. They came out pretty easily. The second one took a touch of PB Blaster, but I didn't have to drill either of them.






So, I got the bolts out, put the flange back, got the 1-1/16th nut and cotter pin back, reset the camber bolt (marking the strut bar itself saved me, my marks on the cam itself got rubbed away by the wrench), and started putting in the new bolts. It took a while to get the first one lined up, but I finally got it. Spent just as long trying to get the one at the opposite corner, but finally got it, too. That's when things went downhill quickly. At this point, both remaining holes should be lined up and ready for the bolts, right? Wrong.



You can see the gap between the u-joint and the flange. The bolt you see on the left is tight...when I realized what I was looking at I tightened both bolts just to be sure, then I took the pictures. The opposite corner has an almost identical gap. So much for getting out of this one easily.

1snake

Either loosen the cam bolt and rotate it until the gap disappears, tighten the bolts and then reset the cam bolt to its original position OR jack the trailing arm up a bit to decrease the gap and then put the bolts in.

Jim

Godholio

Is it supposed to look like that, or is it actually bent? If its bent I'm not thrilled about using it.