How do I get these bloody tight caliper bolts off

[Chriskoss]

Ive used a breaker bar.. made my own, 1ft long, still wont budge, I can feel the bolt rounding off now, yeah my socket set it cheap but it fits on the bolt fine, its just bloody tight, im no weak fellow either, will an electric impact driver do the trick?

[bennjamin]

either, will an electric impact driver do the trick?

probably not. An electric impact gun applies its max power for a short time only , dropping to a 75%-90% grunt for most of its charge then goes dead flat. My point is on these stubborn bolts , you would have to be DEAD straight on with a 6 sided socket to achieve the strongest hit of torque to crack the bolt.

[aaronng]

Ive used a breaker bar.. made my own, 1ft long, still wont budge, I can feel the bolt rounding off now, yeah my socket set it cheap but it fits on the bolt fine, its just bloody tight, im no weak fellow either, will an electric impact driver do the trick?

1 ft breaker bar is too short. Mine is 2 ft long. At 2 ft, the torque you apply will be double that of the 1 ft for the same amount of strength used.

Stop trying until you get proper good 6-point sockets. Once you round it, it will be many times more difficult to remove.

[Neesmo31]

By the sound of how its all going i reckon the head of the bolt is rounded or damaged enough so that when you put some decent leverage on there it will just slip off. 1ft is tiny for a breaker bar. You need 1/2" drive stuff, and at least 2ft of leverage to have any sort of chance in removeing that kind of bolt.

I know its shit spending money but go down to your local and buy a nice 1/2" drive breaker bar (as it sounds like you like doing work yourself) and some new good sockets to suit, and you will not regret that you did. You will use it all the time for other odd jobs that come up and you will be happy that you bought it.

If its starting to round off now and slip, dont do anything more until you get some good tools or a hand. As you will end up having to cut the head off the nut, drill and tap a new thread which is a bit more effort that just undoing a bolt.

Good luck mate.

[aaronng]

Doesn't even need to be a nice breaker bar. I have 1 nice one and 1 supercheap one which I bought for $17. The supercheap one works fine for most bolts.

[Paul1985]

Rattle gun and impact sockets?

Probably would struggle to get a rattle gun and socket onto the caliper bolts..

If you had an oxy welder you could heat the bolt up and it would come out easily.

[na-118]

LOl picture showing it slowly getting stripped abit of wd40, 75 mm breaker bar, if not rattle gun with a i think 916 impact swivel socket,

[chrome]

You mentioned your socket fits on the bolt fine, but you feel it slipping. My advise is that you need to go get better sockets, the cheap ones tends to yield when you try and crack a stubborn bolt. A 2 foot breaker (1/2" drive) and a decent quality socket should be your next step before you totally round off the head.

You need to turn the steering all the way to the right (if you are working on the right side front caliper), which will face the caliper out of the wheel well and give you the most space to use a long breaker bar.

If you do round off the head, then you might still be able to get it off by using special sockets that grab the flats rather than the corners. Metrinch makes such a set, but quite expensive to get. You might just want to bring it to a shop and have them deal with it then.

[Neesmo31]

Wouldnt you need to heat the alloy up so it expands off the bolt? The thermal difference between the 2 should see the alloy expand before the bolt does. When i say nice breaker bar i mean a nice long one lol. Difference between good and shit breaker bars (if the same length) is nothing, would just be how much strain they could take before they break.

Man this bolt must be one tough cookie!

[Limbo]

well with breaker bar it its seized it should snap off at worst.

[Neesmo31]

Im thinking thats what might happen. Remember once you get them out - renew the bolts and perhaps run a tap through the hole to clean out any foreign shit, then locktite nickel anti seize and torque it to the proper setting and youll be laughing.

[wAYzoR]

As stated above, good tools will get you along way and you will never regret it later on. What you want to do is try to crack the bolt first, giving it slow torque you will have a higher chance of snapping the bolt.