I started work on my project car last night for the first time in a long time, beginning with installing suspension/running gear.



Apparently when I removed one side of the front from the donor car, I couldn't get the tie rod end out of the steering knuckle, so I cut it off. The stud is still in the knuckle, cut off at the bottom. I've hammered the top, even with a 10 lb. sledge, to the point of mushrooming the top of the stud.



What's the best course of action? Cut/grind the stud as much as possible, and drill it out?

ick, that's a tricky area man. if you heat up the stud too much you'll start to melt down the rubber boots. the ideal situation is to use the "pickle fork," it's a tool that really does look like a fork that can be hammered in between the rods to seperate them. looking them up on harbor freight they have one much like a c clamp, but one side is forked to go around the stud, the other is pointed to push the stud through. that might just do it for you. soak it down in mouse milk and often times a lot of force slowly works better than hammering on it. beware though, when it finally lets go it's prone to shoot across your shop lol



http://search.harborfreight.com/cpis...fork&Submit=Go

There is no rubber boot to melt, I cut it off. It's literally just a threaded stud, and a small flat portion on the bottom where it started to flare out to the ball, and a mushroomed top from me smacking the hell out of it. I'm not sure if there's enough meat to get a fork on there.



If I want to try heating it, what do I heat, the knuckle or the stud?

what i normally do is use a small 2" square block of aluminum (you probably dont just have one lying around)to put on top of the stud and then hammer it. It keeps the stud from mushrooming .... OR, you can get a brass hammer . Since you've already started mushrooming it, get a grinder and "un-mushroom" it and then drill a hole down into the center of the stud, and put a metal punch down in the hole you just drilled and beat on the punch. Make sure you support the steering knuckle so that it doesn't move when you hit the stud with the hammer.. almost any movement from it will negate the impact from you beating on it and you'll never get the stud out.



Also, drink beer.

I'm not sure if you can use this technique, but I thought I'd offer it up:



http://www.taurusclub.com/forum/inde...howtopic=23272



Basically, you whack the part with the hole with two hammers of the same weight, on opposite sides of the hole.

Seems simple enough, I'll give it a shot. I've been squirting some PB Blaster on it the last couple days, hopefully it'll just pop loose. If not, I guess I start drilling it. There's plenty of room and little risk of damaging anything, so it shouldn't be an issue, I just hate drilling metal.