So I was working on the girl friend’s car this past Saturday and I ran into a interesting issue. The issue was a stripped lug nut that who ever did the previous rotation of tires just forced on. So I got out the 3 in 1 oil and started applying it to the stud and using the air hammer wrench I slowly tightened and backed off the nut applying more oil each time to lubricate it till it came off. This left me with one messed up hub stud, Now all I did was replace the stud as the hub assembly was replaced not too long ago and was still in good shape but the process is the same up to replacing the individual stud. Once that part was out of the way I examined the assembly and found it is attached to the steering knuckle by a triangular shaped plate with three T-55 torx bolts.
I started by spraying the entire plate with rust buster then started removing the brake caliper and hung it with some bungee cords. Then I tackled the CV nut which is a 1 -3/16 socket so the rust buster had some time to sink in. I gave the CV nut a few turns back on to protect the threads and gave it a whack with the sort of BFH and saw it budge and gave it a few more whacks with the rubber mallet. You only need to loosen the spline you do not need to knock the CV out of the spline all the way. Once the CV was freed I then rotated and aligned the holes on the hub assembly with the torx bolts one at a time and went to town on trying to turn them. I used a 1/2 inch ratchet with no luck they wouldn’t budge and I know from the past that means don’t force it. So I got the air hammer wrench out and gave it a try and that was able to loosen one bolt. For the other two I broke out the 3/4 inch drive ratchet and gave some nice even pulls and that gave me enough leverage to back them off with no issues.
The first battle was fought and won with no casualties, now for battle number two removing the hub assembly. This was quite a task as I had to get the sort of BFH back out and whack away at the assembly until it came loose from the steering knuckle. It took 7 good whacks to knock it loose it won’t hurt it so don’t worry about being gentle just make sure you don’t clip the steering knuckle. Now for replacing the stud I just got the somewhat BFH out again and knocked the stud out before removing the assembly and to press the new stud back in I just got a few washers and pulled the stud back in with the new lug. Now putting it back in is a hell of a lot easier just line the plate up with the holes and snug up the torx bolts nice and tight, snug up the CV nut or replace it I went the safe route and replaced it as they are usually one time use nuts, reinstall the caliper and you are good to go.