Murbella – Day 10 – Spacer finally removed!!!

I kept debating about the damn stub axle, knowing I could not use any garage heat to really get it hot enough to budge it any further.

I decided to manually hacksaw it off since at least I could try and control the angle and not risk damaging the shaft itself.

It took about 15 minutes of careful cutting at an non-ideal angle but I managed to get it cut down.

Using a punch, I was able to hammer into the cut and finally it popped and released.

So. Original VW stub axle saved!

I really amazes me how impossible this was to get off. I’ll emory paper the shaft to polish that up. You can see all the heat marks from my many sessions of propane torching.

I’ve done a quick pass with the sander to get some of the undercoating off and try to take things down to bare metal. I need to spend more time on it but this was a good first pass.

I’ve got it soaking in the new parts cleaner solvent I was given. We’ll see if it makes any difference to what remains on the metal.

I’ll sand up the base again if necessary prior to coating it with the rust seal.

The shaft will get polished up smoother right before reassembly.