Can't Remove Lower Rear Shock bolt - Help

I am going to check and probably replace my ELC rear shocks on a 98 Venture as they are orginal.

I have the factory manual and it looks simple. I have removed the air line connection and the upper bolt and the upper end of the shock moves free. However I have spent an hour on the lower bolt and cannot get it to back off at all.

I have gotten the nut off with no problem. I can get the bolt to rotate in both directions although it is very tight for some reason (I would guess takes 20-25 ft. lbs to turn it ). So it is not frozen to anything. I have been banging on the outside end of this bolt (the nut end toward the tire) with a 3 pound sledge hammer for 1/2 an hour. I can move the shock back and forth a bit on the lower bolt so the shock bushing is not stuck to the bolt. The bolt seems like something is keeping it from going back out the mount end hole next to the bolt head. Yet I when I turn the bolt and I can see it rotating so I know it is not frozen from rust there. I have sprayed penatrating oil and I even put a torch to it thinking some of the rubber bushing was binding it up in there but still no luck.

This is suppose to be an easy job but I have been at this one bolt for an hour. I thought I have been living right :evillol: Any ideas ? Is it time to try and find a bigger sledge hammer and go postal and see if I can really destroy something?

The lower bolt should very simply slide out from the housing. If the bolt is loose, the nut is off, put the nut back on and thread it until it is flush with the end of the bolt. Use that surface as a hitting point, that should knock the bolt free. Then remove the nut and the bolt should be free to slide then.

It may be that the shock has worn the bolt and the bolt is stuck in a "groove" in the shock housing. You may also try to pull the shock, re-attach the top bolt and remove the bottom bolt first. Try pulling the bottom of the shock as you push/hit the bottom bolt through the opening.

Good luck...

I believe the bolt is frozen to the metal tube that goes in the center of the shock bushing. (That would explain why it is so hard to torque as this "bushing tube" is turning within the rubber bushing itself.) Since the metal tube has a larger diameter than the shock mount opening there is no way it is going to come out. I would have thought a bit of rust/corrosion would have given away with all of the effort so far but it hasn't. Putting the nut back on the end of the bolt will not really help in this case as the bolt end threads don't extend to the end of the bolt so you still end of banging on the end of the bolt even with a nut on it. I will mention that it takes a 18mm socket for these bolts in case anyone else comes along and does this job in the future. If you do I would start with the lower bolt as that is where any problem will show up.

I will try and reattach as your worn grove idea might be a possibility but if that doesn't work it looks like I will have to get a 4 inch cut off tool later today and start cutting things apart and see what happens.

Update: I had to use the cut off tool to grind through the bolt on both sides of the shock to get it off. The bolt was frozen to the bushing sleeve and would not come out.