Stuck Bolts

My thoughts exactly but since I've done that before I could not bring myself to say as much LOL!

 

The pips' meaning is specialized for these strut-to-knuckle bolts. Toyota sells them in several slightly different diameters. The skinnier ones give greater 'slop' in the angle of the strut to the knuckle before they are tightened down, allowing the camber to be adjusted.

I've seen those; I don't think I own one. It was definitely tedious with a Dremel.

-Chap

 

Never had one either, but recalled seeing them here:

2 pc Nut Splitter Set | Princess Auto

 

Give me a lever long enough, and I can move the world. I would go with a 1/2" breaker bar and a five-foot long steel pipe. Use a high quality, short impact socket and a high-quality breaker bar (not Harbor Freight).

They even make 3/4" sockets for such work, but unless you can rent them it's very expensive.

This will let you smoothly and evenly apply torque until the bolt cracks loose. Once it cracks loose, you can use just the breaker bar and then just a ratchet.

 

I have definitely encountered some things that frustrated even quite long levers. The first time I tried my hand at a water heater anode rod (my own, that time), I didn't yet own an impact tool, but I had a very sturdy six foot steel pipe to go over my breaker bar, and another one to put between the plumbing connections so the first one didn't just turn the whole heater. I didn't just give up when I personally couldn't budge those two pipes, either. My next attempt was to take a bar clamp, configured to expand, and put it between the ends of those six foot pipes. And when that did nothing at all, I tried the same idea but with a hydraulic bottle jack between the ends of the pipes.

I took a break when I realized, with the amount of force it had put on the pipes, if that jack had slipped out of place it would probably have been thrown through my concrete block foundation.... So I gently relieved the pressure, put the pipes away, went to Sears and bought an impact wrench, and had the anode rod out in a matter of minutes.

Now in the case of these suspension bolts, something really is fishy here if they are so hard to get loose, on a California car. Maybe an early attempt with the impact wrench really did have it set for the wrong direction. If that happened, they are now very very tight.

Re: long enough lever moving the world, it's good to remember that can work for or against you. It's pretty easy, for example, with a long enough lever, to move your whole car right off the stands holding it up. Don't ask how I know that, it was a long time ago.

Impact tools, because they deliver force in sharp whacks, have the advantage of being able to put really strong torque on a bolt without tending to move the whole car, water heater, or what have you.

-Chap

 

Memo to "move the world with really long lever" folks: you need a fixed fulcrum or prying point, which is hard to set up in space. Secondly, attaching short end of lever to rotating world is a problem--I suggest South geometric pole in Antarctica as that is at least land rather than water.
Seriously , agree on strong side forces being dangerous to cars on jack stands. I typically leave the hydraulic wheeled floor Jack underneath for extra support if the car should start to sway off the Jack stands.
Curious what caused the OP's problem.

 

Well, we might never know. Seem like this is yet another OP abandoning his thread never to be heard from again.....sigh.

 

I haven't worked on these particular bolts, but it's true that it would rely on being able to extend the bar past the wheel well.

 

In case anyone is having this issue in the future, there is also a device known as a "Torque multiplier" that can be used in smaller spaces for this kind of issue. You can get them fairly cheap ($40-$80) and they can exert up to around 2,500ft/lbs of torque (on the cheaper models) to remove nuts. No clue how the OP wound up in this situation (maybe the hint to "turn counter clockwise" solved it), but I did once accidentally over torque a lug nut with my impact tool because my hand pushed the directional button in the wrong direction while spinning them off. No stranger to rusted bolts here in NJ, so I thought I'd add this info for anyone who can't solve the issue with a breaker bar or impact wrench.