Hi Everyone,
Does anyone have any experience removed a sheared steering knuckle bolt. Thank God I was going slowly and close to home. But the rear bolt sheered off of the left steering knuckle. The bolt that holds the pitman arm to the spindle. Is the correct term? The knuckle?
Think I need to get the whole thing off and drill it out. The front one allows me to drive forward but try to go in reverse and the thing splays outward. Hopefully I can find another bolt with ease.
Any suggestions appreciated.

Cheers

 

Can you post a picture of the bolt thats sheared? Based on what's left, we may be able to advise you further on how to remove it.

 

Yes. You will have to pull the strut to remove the sheared bolt. You should be able to find a replacement bolt fairly easily. Just make sure you get the strongest grade bolt you can find. Also make sure the holes in the steering arm (or whatever it is called) are round and not oval. And use red loctite on the bolt. They should not shear if they are tight.

Carl

 

Because the wheel comes out in reverse it sounds like the long rear bolt on the knuckle.
I would guess it was loosened when replacing brake rotors and wasn't tightened back. I wouldn't recommend red loctite because that would make removal later a real bear, use the blue one.

 

Blue Loctite is probably fine, but red is not hard to remove either. Just use a propane torch. Having seen that failure 5 or 6 times in a friend's race car, including once when my son was driving and the whole strut came off on track and once when I lost control going through T2 at Willow Springs, I want it as reliable as possible. They have never failed in my race car (25 years) and I have used red loctite ever since I found the bolts a little loose after a race about 10 years ago. The break-away torque for red is 3-5 times greater than blue according to the Permatex technical data sheets.

I also use red loctite on wheels studs, since blue tends to melt (?) and not hold. The rotors are of course much hotter than the bolts at the bottom of the struts (B & C in the excellent photo above).

Carl

 

And if you happen to munch the threads when drilling out the sheared bolt, mustanghammer can advise on a thru-bolt solution.

 

Hey guys thanks for the great responses. I just got the sheared bolt out but now to find a replacement. The leading bolt doesn't look to good either. Geeze these pictures upload pretty big. Anyone know of good replacement bolts?

Hmmm think I need to remove the strut for this.

Leading bolt that looks a little suspect

This isn't going to be easy.

Woohoo!! Got it!!

 

Awesome Thank you so much. Now where to get B and C?

 

If you don't have a good industrial hardware outlet near you, you can try BelMetric. Otherwise, Mazda lists the bolt part numbers as 9975011225 and 9975011235. At least one of those two shows as available from Mazda at about $3.50 each.

Carl

 

Given the threads boogered up, I would believe that one came out and the other bounced around for awhile, is that how this happened? Just curious what the root cause ended up being, as those are torqued pretty good, and usually there's serious suspension damage from hitting things at the wrong angle to result in such damage.

 

I just realized I need those bolts as well for my steering swap, 25 and 35mm lengths will work.

 

Think it came out. I didn't use loctite.