So I’ve been working on those 1302 front struts and spindles off and on for weeks and was making zero progress in separately the spindle off the damn strut bottom.
No amount of heat, soaking, whacking, etc. that I could do with my tools in my garage made a difference.
We got the gland nuts off and the inserts out. That was the easy part with his bigger vise.
Then the fun began. Oh boy did it!
At first he started with the heat from a little hand held torch like I use and of course, that made no difference. He then pulled out the massive dual-tank oxy-acetylene torch and used that to get it pretty red hot.
Both he and I banged the hell out of it with a far heavier hammer than I own, trying our best to avoid any damage to the spindle and trying to save the strut too.
The air hammer he has, with the constant shop air pressure really made a difference.
And finally…
Between the various applications of heat, the air hammer, and the other hammers we finally got them off. I don’t think the metal is that damaged, but I’ll likely need do file some of this down clean after they get blasted.
I don’t think they were ever removed from the spindles. And if they were, it was decades ago. These things had to have spent a long time in the inclement weather. The strut bases were really bonded to the interior of the spindles.
Both assemblies had their issues. But they are now all disassembled.
Now to get the gland nuts off the 1303 struts and then get the bushings and ball joints out of both 1302 and 1303 control arms.
Here’s a longer (and louder) vid of what it took to get the one off.
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