Technical 2008 500 1.4 sport, rear stub axle stud sheared

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Technical 2008 500 1.4 sport, rear stub axle stud sheared

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Hi all,

First post on here, so be gentle! My much better half has a 2008 1.4 sport that I was happily changing the rear disks on the day. Long story short (and having sworn a lot about a design that forces you to take the stub axle off to change the disks...) I managed to shear a stud - on the driver's side -
tightening the stub axle nuts back up. Partially because it seemed to be difficult to actually find torque figures for it but mainly, I assume, I was a bit of a wally.

I've had the stub axle off and tried a roller stud remover - to no effect; similarly I've put the stud in a vice and popped a breaker bar between two other studs to try and turn it out but, again, to no avail.

Now I'm stuck 1) trying to find a replacement stub axle (only one on eBay and none of my usual scrap yards seem to have any) and 2) trying to find someone to get the studs out for me (I have one possible lead on this... hopefully).

Anyway - my question: has anyone else had this? Any advice on part suppliers (I'm in the Midlands) or how to get the stud out myself?

Apologies if any of this has been asked before or if this is wrong place on the site!

Cheers,
Paul.
 
Hi all,

First post on here, so be gentle! My much better half has a 2008 1.4 sport that I was happily changing the rear disks on the day. Long story short (and having sworn a lot about a design that forces you to take the stub axle off to change the disks...) I managed to shear a stud - on the driver's side -
tightening the stub axle nuts back up. Partially because it seemed to be difficult to actually find torque figures for it but mainly, I assume, I was a bit of a wally.

I've had the stub axle off and tried a roller stud remover - to no effect; similarly I've put the stud in a vice and popped a breaker bar between two other studs to try and turn it out but, again, to no avail.

Now I'm stuck 1) trying to find a replacement stub axle (only one on eBay and none of my usual scrap yards seem to have any) and 2) trying to find someone to get the studs out for me (I have one possible lead on this... hopefully).

Anyway - my question: has anyone else had this? Any advice on part suppliers (I'm in the Midlands) or how to get the stud out myself?

Apologies if any of this has been asked before or if this is wrong place on the site!

Cheers,
Paul.

Hello and welcome.

Sorry to hear of your problem.

I've sheared a few studs off in the course of a lifetime of mending stuff.

There are various ways of dealing with sheared studs; the most appropriate depends on how exactly it's broken. Soaking the remains overnight in an appropriate solution before you start will help. WD40 is better than nothing, but there are superior alternatives. If you have the ingredients, one good recipe is equal parts of acetone (the primary ingredient of nail varnish remover) and automatic transmission fluid.

My first thought would be to mark the centre of the broken stud with a punch, drill an appropriately sized hole and then use an easyout extractor to remove it. This is usually effective, but you need to work accurately.

It would help if you could post a picture.
 
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Cobolt drill bits to remove/drill sheared bolts and studs, drill the hole big enough and centred and the remains of the bolt or stud can be removed very easily, also the heat of drilling quite often loosens the grip.

That said, have you phoned around any parts suppliers? GSF, EUROCarparts etc, they might not list these parts on their websites but they supply to the motor trade and will be able to get pretty much anything in 24 hours, a quick Google of fiat 500 stub axle brought up an original fiat item for £34, no idea if it is specific to your car, but I can't imagine a good quality part from one of the above suppliers would cost very much at all
 
Thanks for your replies both - been a hectic couple of days so not been able to check back, sorry!

Good thoughts about calling round some suppliers; was falling into the assuming what's online is what they have trap, though. In terms of finding a rear stub axle it's actually surprisingly tricky though - the only one I can find (that's a rear disk) is on eBay and for the wrong side; none of my local breakers have any 500's in at the moment either (even a specialist 500 supplier up North seems to only have drum brake models in atm).

Going to grab myself a blow torch and have a go with a bit of gentle heat, I think; failing that a friend of the family has a body shop who's just taken on a mechanic - and they've said they can try if I can't get it shifted.

Photo wise - good though. I'll post one up when I get the axle back off the car in the next couple of days.

Quick thought though - applying heat to loosen the stud; is that likely to have any impact on the bearing, or do we reckon that should be ok (assuming it's high temp grease anyway).

Cheers and thanks for your help :)
Paul.
 
Remember to remove the ABS sensor before going wild with blow torch?

That's exactly what I was just trying to work out how to do - last time I had the stub axle off the ABS sensor wouldn't budge. Few searches on here said either a) hit it gently with a socket and a hammer (which seemed doubtful to me) or b) that it should just pull straight out once you've undone the securing bolt - which it absolutely does not do.

Any ideas outside of bucket loads of penetrating fluid and gentle persuasion?

(I'm sure I'll be shot for saying this (and much as I love the little 500 sport) -
it's just all a lot easier on my Golf! :D )
 
Right so... finally got the studs out. For anyone interested: I first took the stud axle assembly off the car, clamped the brake caliper mounts into my metal working vice and tapped the abs sensor out (via a long, wooden dowel through one of the wheel bolt holes - literally nothing else would shift the bugger). For the studs, I initially tried one of those roller stud removal things - the type that look like a big socket. That on the end of a breaker bar would just end up spinning and not moving anything. Eventually I filled two flat points on either side of the stud, heated the area up for about 30 seconds, and then put my biggest (about a foot long) adjustable spanner onto it. Lo and behold, and with a lot of heaving, I managed to turn the thing out. For the one that had sheared, down to about 1cm, I couldn't turn the spanner because of the various metal protrusions on the stub assembly. So I put the stud itself into the vice, dropped a couple of long bolts through the caliper mounts, and then used them as a leverage point for the breaker bar. Not fun, but done. Phew.

So... now all I need is studs. Does anyone know the spec (hardened or not, etc) that I need to buy? Or a reliable place to source from?

Cheers :)
Paul
 
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Sorry I don't know the stud spec .
just a reminder that you are working on a safety critical part .
Don't be fobbed of with any old threaded rod, lots of them are only 4 . 8 tensile strength which is not strong enough.
Please also find out if the studs need thread lock to retain them in stub axle.
Good luck.
 
Sorry I don't know the stud spec .
just a reminder that you are working on a safety critical part .
Don't be fobbed of with any old threaded rod, lots of them are only 4 . 8 tensile strength which is not strong enough.
Please also find out if the studs need thread lock to retain them in stub axle.
Good luck.

That's what worries me tbh - hence the questions. :) I may try calling the local Fiat dealer tomorrow and see if they can tell me.
 
That's what worries me tbh - hence the questions. :) I may try calling the local Fiat dealer tomorrow and see if they can tell me.



Fiat dealer will sell you the bolts but they are very unlikely, given the safety critical nature of the part, to just tell you the specs and allow you to go off and find your own.

If you got the wrong part, you'll still blame them and they are left with little come back.

The bolts from fiat are not going to be hugely expensive and it's worth getting the right parts.

And in all likelihood the parts department folk aren't going to know the specs anyway, they look at a part number on a computer, then go and pick it off a shelf.
 
All fair points. Ordered some off my local Fiat dealer - a massive £1.73 each so not too bad. Only slight pain is that they have to come from Italy - so need to wait until the end of the week!
 
All fair points. Ordered some off my local Fiat dealer - a massive £1.73 each so not too bad. Only slight pain is that they have to come from Italy - so need to wait until the end of the week!
I had foolishly assumed that as they were studs into stub axle they wouldn't be available separately from the stub axle assembly.
well-done Fiat parts department for making studs available separately and for not insane pricing.
My I recommend using thread lock on refitting ?
 
I had foolishly assumed that as they were studs into stub axle they wouldn't be available separately from the stub axle assembly.
well-done Fiat parts department for making studs available separately and for not insane pricing.
My I recommend using thread lock on refitting ?

Sounds like a plan - when I go to collect I'm going to see if I can get the service dept to find out what Fiat recommend for re-fitting; both torque specs (although I have some of that from searches on here and from the Haynes manual - even though it doesn't cover rear discs) and thread lock (and hopefully what grade as well, if they do!)

Assuming I can get anything out of them, I'll update here so we all know (should anyone else be as foolish as me again). Meanwhile... I'm going to see if I can find some suitable bolts so I can pop the stub axle back on so the car can rest on the floor while I wait for parts (instead of axle stands!)
 
Sounds like a plan - when I go to collect I'm going to see if I can get the service dept to find out what Fiat recommend for re-fitting; both torque specs (although I have some of that from searches on here and from the Haynes manual - even though it doesn't cover rear discs) and thread lock (and hopefully what grade as well, if they do!)

Assuming I can get anything out of them, I'll update here so we all know (should anyone else be as foolish as me again). Meanwhile... I'm going to see if I can find some suitable bolts so I can pop the stub axle back on so the car can rest on the floor while I wait for parts (instead of axle stands!)
Unfortunately the service department are unlikely to know . More upsetting is they will be disinclined to try and find out . Use blue thread lock if you want to remove them again.
Don't tighten studs to a higher torque than the nuts that go on them .
 
Sounds like a plan - when I go to collect I'm going to see if I can get the service dept to find out what Fiat recommend for re-fitting; both torque specs (although I have some of that from searches on here and from the Haynes manual - even though it doesn't cover rear discs) and thread lock (and hopefully what grade as well, if they do!)

Assuming I can get anything out of them, I'll update here so we all know (should anyone else be as foolish as me again). Meanwhile... I'm going to see if I can find some suitable bolts so I can pop the stub axle back on so the car can rest on the floor while I wait for parts (instead of axle stands!)
Do the studs screw into a blind hole or is it a through hole?
 
Sounds like a plan - when I go to collect I'm going to see if I can get the service dept to find out what Fiat recommend for re-fitting; both torque specs (although I have some of that from searches on here and from the Haynes manual - even though it doesn't cover rear discs) and thread lock (and hopefully what grade as well, if they do!)


Here's a table from eLearn giving the thread specs & torque settings for the rear stud bolts.
 

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Through hole on all four. :)
In that case I would say 18Nm or so , use blue (medium strength) thread lock and assembled stub axle to axle and torque retaining nuts to spec before the thread lock cures (in order that no cured thread lock is under any loading)
If you are confident you won't need to remove the studs again you can use red (high strength) thread lock.
 
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In terms of threadlock, what do you use? I can see a few different options around: Bond-It A43 Threadlock (on Amazon/eBay) that seems to be oil tolerant, and then Loctite (of varying grades - but something like 2400, which is a blue medium strength).

I'm tempted by the Bond-It, because of the oil tolerance, but it's a brand I've never heard of which makes me nervous about the quality. May well just be down to my lack of knowledge though.
 
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