I broke a wheel stud.
 

Prepare to drive my recently-bought 96 bonne from Monday. So I decided to check the torque of the wheel nuts. One of them felt a little bit funny from the first turn and it broke. :( :shock: :x :cry: :evil:

From what I found, I just need to hammer out the broken one and put the new one in. Nothing special. Is that correct? Will I break the bearing behind it if I hammer it too hard? Thank you!

front or rear? I wouldnt pound a lot on it (hub)

The bearing is very hard it wont break but no reason to punish it any more than necessary, try and remove it with a pointed chisel in a couple of hits.

When putting in the new one get some bigger washers or nut to use as a spacer and draw it in with a lug nut.

Remove the wheel and simply tap the broken stud out of the hub. There's no need to strike the hub with a hammer.

If necessary, use an ample screwdriver or pointed-tip tool to get the stud past the hub. Then, just slip the new stud into position from the back-side of the hub.

Reinstall the wheel, torque the lug to the correct value (100 ft. lbs.).

Easy job!

Good. It's the front. No I didn't mean to punch the hub but I was thinking punching the broken stud. But it doesn't appear to too difficult. I will try soon.

BTW, vital49, it seems to me that we are quite close geographically. I just move into Lansing 20 days ago. Do we have club gathering or something like around here?

Yes, the job is quite easy. It happened to me once on a 93 SE we used to own.

Regarding the meets, yes, we get together every now and then. Keep an eye on the Eastern US forum for MI meets. ;)

Help! The wheel stud doesn't come out!
 

OK, here is the thing. I didn't do it last week because it was too hot. I tried a whole day today but it just doesn't work. It doesn't look that rusty at all and I almost use a bottle of PB blaster but it just sits that doing nothing. I couldn't get the tie rod end separator tool suggested here. I got one similar to that but it's useless. What else I can do besides drilling that d*mned thing off. Thanks!

I don't think I can drill it off either because of no power on the the parking lot.

Perhaps it needs to be persuaded with a larger hammer? They can be a bit stubborn sometimes. Get a large punch and a big hammer and go at it. Unless your aim is bad, you aren't likely to do any damage to the hub.

I drilled 3 of mine (lost the lock) and they were surprisingly easy with my cordless drill. You REALLY need to be careful to NOT mess up the splines or hub,

Another way would be to really heat up the hub, like driving for a while and using the brakes.

They really arent that hard to remove with a punch but using a good size hammer helps too.

Anybody familiar with CRC freeze-off? I tried it just before reading Mark's suggestion. It claims to cool down the thing and loosen it, together with its organic solvent. It makes sense on paper, so I bought it. Mark's suggestion is a similar one by increasing the temperature. I will probably not try it though. Here is what I prepare to do. I just applied a big dose of PB Blaster to it and hope something magic happens overnight. If I can't get it off tomorrow, I am going to drill it off.

Any more suggestion? Thank you very much, guys! I really want to drive it to work Monday.

Not sure of clearances on Bonneville, but on another car I used a C-clamp and a socket larger than the head of the stud.
Put the socket on the back side of hub. Put the C-clamp across the end of the stud and the socket.
Use the clamp to press the stud head into the socket. No hammer required.