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I can't seem to unstake the hub nut. I'm supposed to pound it towards the crimped (indented) end? How do you know when it's unstaked. I've been mashing on that thing with an air chisel for like a half an hour. I'm warping the metal and there's still no effect. Can anyone help?

are you taking it off or putting it on?

Good luck. These things seem to be hit or miss. If you've been at it for hours, chances are it's on there for good and will need to be grinded off. Either that or torched; however, if you have to torch it off plan on buying a new half shaft. The hub should be fine if you concentrate the heat on the nut, as the hub is a much harder steel.

Yeah. I've just been bouncing on a breaker bar for like 10 minutes. I'm 160lbs and i was literally jumping on the breaker. No effect. The hub nuts are rounded now, they were so rusted in the first place that chunks were coming off them.

Is there an alternative? Like removing the tie rod and strut tower and just throwing out the whole crap? There's a good likelihood all of it needs to be replaced. The front end is junk I think.

If they are not rounded off to badly, take it somewhere and ask them to break it loose for you with an impact wrench. Usually they are pretty cool and will break it loose for free, or like 5 bucks at the most.

Nate

i was lucky, i had an impact wrench and a lift :) , although the previous owner broke his cvjoint boot and there was grease of everything the nut just spun off with no trouble. just to let you know, you dont need to remove any of the joints to remove the halfshafts. al i did was i took the 2 bolts off the lower balljoint and the whole assembly just swings out to the side and the shafts are easy to take out.

If you dont want to mess with the ball joint, taking the two bolts off the strut will also allow you to get them out.

Nate

I used a chisel and a hammer. remember lefty loosey righty thighty. Thats the only way i could get it off. Took around 8 really hard hits to loosen it. The new shaft came with an extra nut so I didnt care, w00!

I have a 5 foot steel pipe I use for leverage when I have to take my axel nuts off since I don't have an impact gun works every time...