After much research and preparation I took my truck to get aligned today. I recently put on a new HD steering setup from a '98/'99 and some new tires. At the shop, apparently they gorilla'd one of my lower control arm caster bolts and snapped it. They tried to get $140 out of me for removing the 1/2" bolt that they broke with brute force luckily I got that cut down... but for a quick fix they threw a normal bolt in there.

I'm trying to get this thing aligned as quick as possible since my new tires are getting chewed up from misalignment, where can I find this eccentric bolt? It has teeth at the head of the bolt for gripping the eccentric...

Help is appreciated... very much so! Thanks to this shop I'm out nearly $100, my truck is in worse shape than it was when it went in (since they adjusted NOTHING) and now they don't want to see my face again since I gave them a hard time about their brutish tactics.

 

dealer will have one i bought all new bolts etc. when i put my control arms in. have you had the bolt out recently? if you havnt it was most likley rusted int the sleeves inside the bushing and thats why it broke.

 

So dealer only?

No I have not had the bolts off at all but only a moron could have twisted off a 1/2" bolt in one fell swoop. I examined the cross section and confirmed that the bolt was entirely intact before the shear.

Funny thing is, when I got home I spent about 15 minutes carefully removing the other bolt. It was very tight but I got it to budge, sprayed it and turned it back the other way, loosened it a little more, sprayed it and then tightened again... repeat this a few times and voila the nut comes off smoothly.

I would think with $90/hr labor that their technicians would know how do this.

 

most technicians are paid flat rate per job not hourly so he did most likly break it off being a gorilla. but thats the way the automotive buisness operates the faster you work the more you make

 

Since you have the 98/98 linkages they should still have been able to set the total toe and if that is set properly you'll have minimal tire wear issues. The bolt that broke only adjusts the caster and incorrect caster settings cannot cause tire wear. Your tires should be OK but get it fixed ASAP.

John

 

lmctruck.com probably has them. They have hole rebuild kits.

 

Untrue. Unless the technician got his "lefty loosey, righty tighty" wrong, it shouldn't be his fault that your bolt got rusted/stuck and it snap off during the removal process.

It's a 14 year old truck that's in NY(does it snow where you live?).

 

The bolt is clean. He also admitted to using a box wrench on the nut so that means he watched the bolt twist WITH the nut before it snapped. He was and is a moron... any technician that puts every ounce of strength into turning a bolt should realize it's not going to come apart in one shot, they need to be worked off. I slowly worked off the other adjuster bolt and it came apart correctly in minutes.