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You can take off the 2 bolts holding the strut to the steering knuckle, or you can disconnect the lower ball joint. Either one should give you enough clearance to work the axle out.
don't let the caliper hang by the brake hose even for a second, immediately attach it somewhere temporarily with rope, mechanics wire, 12-14 guage copper wire, rags or something...
there are 3 bolts on the control arm, once they are off, you can seperate the control arm from the wheel, and either pull the rotor outward, or push the axel inward, it will just give you barely enough room to take the axle out of the hole that way.
by the way, don't need to take off the brake or caliper stuff.
ok ive pretty much figured out how to do this now. im gonan be going the steering knuckle route, excpet im having insane difficulty getting the last cotter pin out. the caliper is sitting on that little chair so it isint hangign by the brake line, dont worry
once i get the dam cotter pin out i should be good to go
I use an old coat hanger with the top hook area cut off and then bent in the shape of a "U" with small hooks at the top to hang the caliper on the coil springs. One of the best tools I have and it was free.
if it were to fall off the chair, I would replace the brake hose at once.
after you've cut up the metal coat hanger wire, take a small remaining end and put it through the loop in the cotter pin and see if you can't get leverage to remove the pin using a clamp or vise-grips.
just about anything will work to hold the caliper, but if it hangs from the hose consider that hose compromised, even worse it can also damage the steel brake line. You are gonna need a knuckle puller device such as the one I mentioned, if you use a tuning-fork device it won't work -except to break things, same with a hammer. I think that kragen/schucks/checkers rents them for like 5 dollars as part of a whole kit with a bunch of other tools. I've never removed a cv-joint without those tools.
no, i ended up totally killing the cotterpin+bolt after trying every imaginable way to ge tit out (including drilling the dam thing through). i just ended up taking the 3 bolts on the control arm off to seperate the strut asembly from the control arm. but now i cant get the steering knuckle seperated from the tie rod end, it wont budge at all. is there a special tool used to remove this?
The three nuts securing the ball joint to the lower control arm is all you need remove. Leave the steering nuckle alone. Leave the brake caliper in place, it doesn't have to be removed. You need a pry bar to separate the lower control arm from the ball joint/strut assembly. Once they are separated the strut assembly will swing out and allow the axle splines to come out of the splined wheel bearing housing.
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85 LE 2SE 500K km - died trying to push a semi off the road
95 LE 5SFE 530K km, 530K km changed engine, 549K km second engine died, now 554K Km running with a 98 5SFE block and head
01 XLE V6 310K km
Last edited by 500KCamry; 01-30-2005 at 09:53 PM.
Reason: more info
ALL you have to do is loosen the axle nut, remove the three bolts (or is it two nuts and a bolt?) from the lower control arm, and pulling the whole assembly toward you will allow you to get the axles out of the hub. You can hit it with a rubber hammer to get it loosened.
Here's a guide that I wrote for the SHO, of course the Camry is different but it will be very similar:
ALL you have to do is loosen the axle nut, remove the three bolts (or is it two nuts and a bolt?) from the lower control arm, and pulling the whole assembly toward you will allow you to get the axles out of the hub. You can hit it with a rubber hammer to get it loosened.
Here's a guide that I wrote for the SHO, of course the Camry is different but it will be very similar:
Instead of popping the balljoint out, you just unbolt those three bolts...
Exactly like he says. Don't pop either the ball joint or the steering nuckle joint. It is two nuts and one bolt, you might need tube to lengthen the socket handle to get enough leverage to loosen these three items. Once loose a 3/8 drive will take em off. Put penetrating oil on them first.
__________________
85 LE 2SE 500K km - died trying to push a semi off the road
95 LE 5SFE 530K km, 530K km changed engine, 549K km second engine died, now 554K Km running with a 98 5SFE block and head
01 XLE V6 310K km
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