this is exactly what i do. well, not once a month, i do it at every oil change. its actually quite simple because you can reach it over the tires without taking the wheels off. i had to drill both of them out entirely when i did my control arms...

 

And drilling them out really sucks. It's laborious, time-consuming, and can be expensive considering the cost of cobalt drill bits.

 

i was fortunate enough to have a drill press. i bought a cobalt bit and it was like a hot knife through butter. it was actually quite satisfying after the several days of hammering and swearing

 

The drill press must help a lot. We've had to use a hand drill and to be honest, I'd rather **** glass than drill out another pinch bolt. Maybe the ones we've had to deal with were excessively bad, but even using cutting oil, we go through 4-5 cobalt bits on one pinch bolt, which typically comes out as dust and small fragments. Absolutely no fun at all.

 

Zadeluca, where in central NY are you? There's a group of us from this forum in Binghamton, a few more in Ithaca and Corning area, couple in the Poconos (90 minutes south of Binghamton), and a few in Syracuse as well. You near any of us?

 

I'm praying to the pinch bolt gods right now because I'm doing my driver's side control arms tomorrow. Last time I went through 2 drill bits dealing with the upper control arm bolt. Maybe my sledge will work this time.

 

yea thats rough. i tried it by hand first because the spindle was so hard to secure to the drill press. then i just said **** it and just held the damn thing with my left hand as i used the press with my right lol. took about 5 minutes for each one and didnt even break the bit (lots of cutting oil).

im around utica. i posted in the regional forum a while ago and dan mcboost messaged me about all the different get togethers around CNY, but i keep forgetting to write him back

 

Yeah I haven't met him yet either. Myself, Hiwords, Devildub, Emilgevor, Meloman, Tware4021, Blacksheep, Frostyflax17, Me_in_NY, and others are all in this area. Let me know if you ever plan to head down this way or if you're just bored with a free day and I'll see about rounding up the guys and meeting up with you.

 

I don't think there's any way around the pinch bolt issue.

I drilled my driver side bolt today. After a ton of heat and sledge hammering the bolt moved about .5 mm, so back to the drill. Using proper cutting fluid definitely speeds things up.

Having decent aim helps also -- this time the bit came out through the nut dead center.

 

well i got another knuckle (it was the wrong one, go figure) so i went to the hardware store, hardware hank, and lo and behold they had the exact bolt i needed in stainless. same length same width same head size. the only difference was they had 1 pitch and the pinch bolt is 1.25 so close enough. but im thinking ill run a lock washer for safety