I'm pretty sure the drivers side was original (It was only 2 years old when we bought it), and honestly most of the truck has very little rust showing anywhere, so I was floored when I saw this. Gotta Love Salt/Brine road treatments I guess..

Now I am wondering if the damn axle is going to come out of the hub once the nut is off!

I think the easiest thing to do would be to replace the upright/spindle. Just release the upright/spindle from the strut and remove the lower ball joint from the thrust arm and ball joint from the tie rod. Hopefully, the axle will pull out of the front differential.

If I saw that when I did my axle, I would have just brought it to a shop and let them deal with it. How far are you from Avoca New York. There's a repair shop there that just live for this kind of job. South Main Auto, with Eric O. Check out his Youtube channel on fixing cars. He doesn't work on Euro trash as he likes to call these cars.

Maybe you can try this.. bolt extractor, you can get it from Lowes https://www.lowes.com/pd/IRWIN-BOLT-...r-Set/50146292

I would just replace spindle as well.... or take to shop let them deal with it.

Interesting idea, but that only goes up to 16mm, the Axle Shaft nut is more than twice that size (36mm I think?)..

Now that is getting expensive..

I'd use the dremel grinding stone to cut the axle nut, it's not a hard metal and you could probably do it less than an hour. Just cut it enough to break the nut using a chisel, then use a hub puller to push out the axle (this might be tricky if that rust has major build up inside the axle splines)


https://www.facebook.com/Bmw-e53-2508322126058762/

A used spindle can be purchased on ebay for under $100.00 including shipping. This is from a rust free Texas truck.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Passenger-R...!US!-1&vxp=mtr

If you do buy a used spindle offline, have them provide a photo of the lower ball joint. If the ball joint is there fine, but if they removed the ball joint you want to make sure they didn't snap the bolt off while trying to remove it. You don't want to have to drill out the broken bolt.

Unfortunately for you there is no other option than to torch or plasma cut that off! You should be able to find a shop to do it reasonably about
$150-200
the rust has eaten the shaft and retaining nut completely, probably will have to replace hub also!

For $150 you can buy a right angle grinder and a new hub just in case. You should be able to cut through the end of the bolt twice to cut the nut into 4 pieces in under 8 minutes. Not gonna lie it will likely be a bitch to chisel off the pieces then hammer out the axle.

You could remove the whole carrier if you need to hammer on things but I think once you cut off the nut you can get the axle out. You may want to cut a square shape leaving a solid center not a plus shape through the middle it would mushroom when pounding out the axle


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$60 bucks for a new spindle/upright and you are done. $150-200 (just a guess right now) just to cut it off with a plasma cutter and you will still end up buying a new hub once you ruin the old hub with that plasma cutter.