After struggling with yet another seized pinch bolt this weekend, I finally found something that works really well and should work for anyone as long as you haven't messed up the threads too badly with other methods. Bonus points that you can easily do this with the knuckle still in the car and it doesn't involve taking a hammer to any part of your suspension.

Disclaimer: I'm not a professional, follow these instructions at your own risk, wear safety glasses.

TL;DR: Get a box of 3/8" (or 10mm) fender washers and some grease, cut the head off of the bolt if it isn't already broken off, then jack out the bolt by stacking washers.

Anyway, You'll need about 50 or so washers depending on how thick they are. Buying a box of 100 is cheaper than counting out 50 individual ones at the hardware store. I paid $14 for this box. Fender washers are preferable, but regular flat washers will also do the trick. Don't waste your money on stainless or anything fancy. Get the cheapest ones they have. I went with 3/8" instead of 10mm because that's what they had. It doesn't matter.




You'll also need some plain old axle or bearing grease. You want something heavy that can maintain lubrication under very high loads. I've had this jar for years and it's still mostly full. <$10, hardware store or auto parts store, even walmart probably.




The most important thing is to make sure the threads on the pinch bolt are still viable and are clean. If you go wailing on it with a hammer, you're going to mushroom the end of the bolt and you won't be able to thread the nut back on. If you do this, cut a few threads off of the bolt with an angle grinder or a sawzall with a metal blade until they're uniform again, then give the cut edge a 45 degree chamfer like a new bolt. Clean the threads with a wire brush and or a M10x1.25 die if you have one.






If you haven't already broken the head off of the bolt, go ahead and do that now as long as you're sure it'll come out. You can also take it off with an angle grinder if you take your time, just don't mess up your steering knuckle.




This next step is VERY important as you're going to be using the top of the knuckle to transmit force. Take a few of those washers and hammer them into the split in the knuckle for the ball joint closest to the nut of the pinch bolt. You don't need to spread it apart further, but you need to prevent it from collapsing down, so hammer them all the way down to the pinch bolt if you can. I put two all the way in, then hammered in a third between the first two. I stole this idea from someone else's pinch bolt removal instructions. Thanks whoever you were.



You can see where we're going in the previous picture. Before you start stacking and jacking, you want to use that axle grease liberally on the base of the nut, the threads, and the outermost washer. The reason for this is that we don't want to impart any radial force on the bolt, only axial. Screw threads are really good at creating tension, but if there is friction or debris between the threads and the nut, you could wind up applying torque to the bolt shaft which could wind up snapping the other end off as well. That's bad. Use the grease, and add some more every time you add more washers.




When you're stacking the washers, don't go too crazy. I had to cut the bolt down because I'd messed up the threads (see above) so I had less threaded portion of bolt to work with and only added four washers at a time. With a whole bolt (minus the head) you could probably get away with 8 or so, depending on how thick the washers are that you find. You want at least three or four threads showing before you put the nut back on. You'll be imparting a LOT of force on those threads, so make sure you have proper engagement. I wouldn't suggest using impact tools either.

Anyway, rinse and repeat until it's out. Once I had the head off of the bolt and the threads cleaned up, I had it out in about 20 minutes.










The reason this works when wailing on the bolt with a 2 lb hand maul doesn't is that you're imparting force directly on the seized portion of the bolt, in the correct direction, at a continuous high load like a press. A hammer of any sort is only going to transmit a shock load which mostly gets absorbed by the rubber suspension bushings if the knuckle is still in the car. This is also way more force than you're going to inflict with even a BFH. According to this online calculator, 37 ft/lb creates about 6000 lbs of axial load, and that isn't accounting for the lubrication. If there's an ME in the house that can explain better than me, please do.

I hope this helps someone!