So im in the middle if building my track miata. I did the poly bushings on the pass rear corner of the car and ran into an issue.

The axle absolutely would not come out of the hub- torches and hammers failed, and now the end if the axle as well as thw nut is mushroomed over so bad that they both need replacing. What exactly needs to be replaced here-- hub, nut and axle ? I am worried about this happening on all 4 corners, and that would be like 400 bucks in parts.

I am thinking of Just removing the axle completely from the car and leaving it in the hub on the other side, but eventually this will be an issue. Is there a cheap source for these parts other than napa?

 

Junkyard or flyin miata salvage or the parts group. Although im confused on why the nut is mushroomed, didnt you remove the nut to remove the axle? Or...

 

Leave the nut flush to the end of the axle to make more surface area to hammer the ---- out of and try and prevent the axle mushrooming. Clearly I used too big of a hammer. I need to find a way to get it out still.

 

I would say put it in a 20t press and just press it out. i've had friends who said they did and it didn't work but i have a hard time believing 20t wouldn't break loose some rust.

 

If it's mushroomed over bad enough, you'll never get it out. You can spend a bunch of time cutting the hub in half and extract the bearing in several pieces, but it will never come off the bearing, and it will never go back on to a new bearing, and you're going to have to replace the hub anyway. The cheaper/easier solution is to just buy a junkyard spindle and axle.

Some axles come apart, some don't. I say a little prayer before I reach for the 12lb sledge when removing them.


I have heard rumors of bent 20T presses from trying to separate seized axles/hubs. Sometimes it's easier to just leave them alone.

 

Know this thread is from the dark ages.....now on to the question. Sav, is there no type of device that someone has made that can push out the axles? Reference this picture of a slap hammer to pull the hub off. Now if that center was not a slap hammer and it was a threaded hole we could use a bolt and push axle out the back, would that not work?

 

Got to be a better way than the hammer.

 

The slide hammer worked for me. I just had to weld the slide hammer adapter back together a couple times on each hub because it kept breaking. Mainly because I made mine out of random scrap and the biggest I had was 1/4" thick. Of course the cast metal piece that comes in the harbor freight axle puller doesnt fit 4x100.

You couldnt use a pusher on that setup any better than a 20 ton press.

If you follow andrews advice to get the upright hub and axle together from the junk yard, and live in the rust belt get another lower control arm too. Getting the long bolt out of the rear LCA is harder than getting the axle out of the hub. And obviously put everything back together with a ton of anti-seize.

 

Using a slide hammer to get the hub out of the old bearing is just silly. Set the spindle on a couple of jackstands, set a 1/2" socket of an appropriate size on the backside of the hub, and hit it with a 12lb sledge. One solid whack will knock it out.

A pusher-style tool would theoretically work, but if a 20T press won't budge them, I doubt a pusher-style tool will. Some axles just don't want to come free.

 

I know the original thread is dead, but I'm not sure why you'd need to take the upright off the car to do the bushings anyway? There's only one bushing in the upright, and it's trivial to do that one while it's still attached using the HF tool.

--Ian